Wednesday 8 – Friday 10 October
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning saw Cathy, Carole and Bernard resighting incredible numbers of Knot at Snettisham Pits. Numbers of 30,000 individuals were reported on Thursday and, over the course of the three days, 112 colour-marked Knot were seen.
On Friday evening, a small team of only seven arrived at the base house, including Rob, Cathy, Claudia, Hilary, Tanya, Jake and Ingrid. Cathy had a dinner of baked potatoes ready and waiting, and a plan was put in place for the weekend that took into account the unusually small team and the experience level of the group. No catches were planned for Friday night or Saturday morning so a reasonable night’s sleep was in order.
Saturday 11 October
Saturday morning saw the team split into four groups to prioritise recces at Heacham NN (Hilary & Ingrid), Heacham South (Cathy & Tanya), Snettisham (Rob) and Snettisham Pits (Claudia & Jake). The Knot Spectacle at Snettisham also bought every member of the public in the vicinity to the beaches filling the RSPB car park and most of the public beach car park.
Recce results were as follows:
- Heacham NN – 12 Curlew with three flags were quickly disturbed by walkers, 30 Sanderling and 12 Oystercatchers. A walk to Hunstanton revealed 10 Turnstone with no colour rings among them.
- Snettisham – no birds on the beach.
- The Pits – mostly Redshank and Knot (three flags seen) but nowhere near the massive numbers seen on Thursday.
- Heacham South – a settled flock of 60 Curlew with a few Bar-tailed Godwits, Oystercatchers and 30 small greys were seen in front of the Tump at about 08:00 hrs but these were repeatedly disturbed by a very persistent walker and eventually dispersed further south.
- Ken Hill fields – at least six yellow and white Curlew flags were visible and one was readable before they were flushed.
Thinking that all notable bird flocks had then fled the beaches, Cathy and Tanya began to head back to the car when Rob, from Snettisham, called to say he could see small flocks of ~100 Sanderling scattered along Heacham South. Cathy and Tanya returned to confirm 100+ Sanderling were feeding in front of the Tump and ~75 scattered to the north, and Rob’s large flock were about 100 m south. These aggregated into a single flock of 5–600 birds just south of the Tump at high tide when the beach was largely empty. Heacham South therefore was the only viable cannon-netting option for Sunday morning to target Sanderling. Although we had made a big catch of Sanderling nearby a month earlier, these birds would be new arrivals – which proved to be the case (below).
Cathy and Tanya returned to the base house to prepare breakfast and dinner. The rest of the team packed the trailer for mist netting on Saturday night and prepared the kit for cannon netting on Sunday.
After quick naps, the team headed off to Gedney to set up the mist nets at 15:00 hrs. Six nets were set in a backwards ‘F’ configuration over the pool. The team was then joined by Michele, Nick, Graham, Hugh and Mike just in time for dinner. The nets were set by 17:30 hrs and lures went out just after 19:00 hrs. Initially the marsh was quiet and early catching was slow –- bets were taken on how many birds would be caught in the first net round; Cathy won with her guess of three! Birds started to arrive in the nets at 20:30 hrs when a small team were extracting. By 21:00 hrs activity had died down, and very few birds were caught after that. Clear skies and a bright moon may not have helped in that regard but the whole extracting team were able to get stuck in. After a successful mist-netting session, nets and kit were packed away and we said goodbye to the curious cows. The base house saw the return of the original team of seven, with the addition of Hugh, for a four-hour sleep before getting right back at it.
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Black-tailed Godwit | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Bar-tailed Godwit | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Knot | 15 | 0 | 15 |
| Dunlin | 25 | 0 | 25 |
| Redshank | 55 | 0 | 55 |
| Grey Plover | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Turnstone | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Curlew | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Totals | 101 | 0 | 101 |
Sunday 12 October
Sunday morning started very foggy and everyone was a little anxious hoping the fog would lift in time to catch. We all kept telling ourselves that it would burn off with the rising sun! The team was joined by Nigel, Carole, Tim, Kirsty, Phil and two nets were set along Heacham South about 50 m south of the Tump. Nets were set by 09:15 hrs. From his vantage point within the fog, Nigel reported that a small flock of Sanderling were roosting within the catching area but also a few juveniles and Ringed Plover were foraging behind and over the nets, so high tide came and went with no catch. However, the fog didn’t prove to be a cause for concern after all because after some excellent twinkling by Cathy, we fired one net and caught 77 birds just after high tide, at 10:46 hrs. The Sanderling also proved to be a different flock than was present last month as these individuals consisted of mostly unringed juveniles, whilst last month was largely adults.
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Oystercatcher | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| Bar-tailed godwit | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Sanderling | 62 | 3 | 65 |
| Dunlin | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Knot | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Totals | 72 | 5 | 77 |
Colour-mark resighting Totals
| Species | Total Sightings | Individuals |
| Bar-tailed Godwit | 3 | 3 |
| Curlew | 4 | 4 |
| Knot | 38 | 37 |
| Total | 45 | 44 |
Trip ringing totals
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Curlew | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Dunlin | 26 | 0 | 26 |
| Grey Plover | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Knot | 16 | 0 | 16 |
| Oystercatcher | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| Redshank | 55 | 0 | 55 |
| Sanderling | 62 | 3 | 65 |
| Black-tailed Godwit | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Bar-tailed Godwit | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| Turnstone | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Total | 173 | 5 | 178 |
Thanks to Tanya Cobb for writing this report. Cover image by Cathy Ryden.