Monday 4 May
The team started heading for Delaware a little early this year on Monday 4 May – with four of us staying for a full four weeks to catch the beginning and the end of the season. All four of us headed down to London a day before the flight to avoid the M25 issues. Nigel and Jacquie picked up Graham, then dropped off their dogs before spending the night at a Travelodge in Slough , while Cathy took the train.
Tuesday 5 May
We all met up at Terminal 3 and Jacquie was shown to the assistance area, which all worked well – especially the autonomous buggies that you get strapped into and they deliver you to the appropriate gate. We ate in the departure lounge and Nigel eventually managed to get Graham’s socks on. We flew an hour late, but made it to Philly on time. Amazingly, there was hardly anyone in immigration and we sailed through then had a long wait for our bags. Avis pickup was also pretty straightforward for a change. The journey down to Slaughter Beach went well, apart from Nigel nearly going the wrong way and being shouted at by the rest of us simultaneously.
Dinner prepared by Kat was very welcome and enjoyed by all. Our thought of using the aircon this year didn’t work as we couldn’t find way of turning it on or off. However, the famous raining ceiling had been partly replaced – we’ll see if has been fixed ….
Wednesday 6 May
n Wednesday we carried on the work of sorting out all our equipment and the big house. We used to have a mouse mobile (the old USFWS jeep), when a mouse found its way into the engine compartment and died there. We now have a mouse box – it seems a mouse unfortunately made it into a box at the end of last season and met its demise. We have some binocular cases etc to clean – we don’t want the team to start a new Hantavirus outbreak. We coded all our kitchen equipment with colourful nail varnish as well as using nail varnish to colour code the ringing and processing equipment to make it easier to get the equipment back into the right boxes after a catch. Of course, we also managed to get out in the Harbor and get some resightings and look for early catching opportunities.
Thursday 7 May
So, much to the surprise of a lot of the vols (we don’t catch this early in the season) we went for a catch – this was part of the reason for coming early and leaving late – we get the data from both ends of the season. We set a single half net on Point S with the aim of taking a small catch and boating them across to the DNC, so the beaches were only disturbed for a short time. However, it has been a very dry winter and Graham and Greg found it virtually impossible to get the keeping cages in. Lots of scraping up of sand followed to try and make the cages Turnstone proof.
The birds came in well and we made a good mixed catch:
| Species | Number |
| Ruddy Turnstone | 67 |
| Short-billed Dowitcher | 2 |
| Sanderling | 11 |
| Dunlin | 4 |
| Total | 84 |
Friday 8 May
Friday we got (almost) everything squared away ready for the Brit influx on Saturday. Richard did a Sam’s Club run with the aim of getting a lot of our shopping done (it soon ran out). We also went out surveying and were pleased to see Knot around. We reorganised the trailer so that setting equipment is now at the normal door and the catching stuff at the drop down end. The database proved to be recalcitrant at the beginning of the season making work for Kat, the whirling Dervish. There were a couple of cooking incidents. First Zach had the BBQ on fire – fire extinguisher deployed – then, when finishing off dinner upstairs walked into a damaged board and cut his toe. This was tracked down by following the blood trail. Dave and Marg came to visit on Friday evening, bearing venison and mead. It was great to see Dave at the house and recovering from treatment. For some unknown reason, Jacquie was sick for three hours in the night, keeping both Nigel and Ema up (in his ‘bedroom’ at the top of the stairs).
Saturday 9 May
Saturday saw more Brits arrive (Katharine & Rob via Bombay Hook – shopping with a view…). Another busy day – the never-ending job of opening bands, two boats into the Harbour and other site visits. Ema gave a talk about his Magellanic Plover work at the Nature Center before cooking dinner of risotto.
Sunday 10 May
We started the day with a happy birthday to Ema! To celebrate there was an early start to set up a catch on Back Beach. Though, as often happens in Delaware, the plans soon changed as there had been an amazing spawning overnight with lots of Horseshoe Crabs everywhere and Point North looking a much better option. The Jon-boat crew soon set up a net, the skiff and crew arrived and birds were soon eager to be back! An unexpected risk of Semi ‘pollution’ meant newly-arrived Rob was deployed behind the net to keep the birds back from the catch area. This was very successful and soon the birds were creeping up the beach and there was soon “3,2,1, Fire!” and we were off to the nets! A lovely diverse catch of 129 birds were soon extracted and ferried across to Swains where Graham and co had set up basecamp and, with the net set taken up, everyone was back and processing. The recaptured birds’ flags were inspected and despite cries like “Richard has a very dirty one” all were able to be read and historic sightings linked! After a well-deserved lunch, two boat crews headed out late morning and mid-afternoon to get some good resightings as well as put up a blind and hide to help to reduce certain disturbance. The whole day was rounded off with a hearty curry from Graham!
| Species | Number |
| Red Knot | 1 |
| Ruddy Turnstone | 11 |
| Short-billed Dowitcher | 3 |
| Sanderling | 24 |
| Semi-palmated Sandpiper | 18 |
| Dunlin | 72 |
| Total | 129 |
Monday 11 May
A little bit of drama happened overnight when the wet weather caused a tent to collapse, but all survived even if a toe got stubbed and crutches were needed to be purchased the next day… The new hide wasn’t quite in the same position in the morning as yesterday but once righted it worked well again to allow birds to come in close on the mids. Despite the rain, it eased off enough for surveys to go ahead, both in Mispillion and further along the coast with decent numbers of flags spotted, and afternoon boats also went ahead.
With the anticipation of a catch coming up for Turnstone (and a bigger team) the satellite tags were prepped to continue increasing knowledge of migration routes of birds passing through Delaware but also to increase the data on movements within the bay for Jessie’s Masters degree. Following some final resightings on the top end of Slaughter Beach, dinner was Caribbean-inspired by Nigel with Jacquie prepping us nicely for the planning of a catch again tomorrow. Highlights of the day included a mistaken identity between Emmas/Emas and their likelihood of being pregnant!
Tuesday 12 May
The morning’s catch on Back Beach again got moved to Point North where there was a small number of Knot in the potential catching area, despite some gulls (which dominated Back Beach!). After setting, the flock of Knot and Sanderling started growing nicely and with a perfectly-firing net we had a great catch of 293 birds, which again were taken back to Swains for processing. The whole process was a lot quicker than expected which meant keeping cages weren’t quite in place but the base camp team adjusted admirably! The size of the catch precluded the tagging but, in the afternoon, alongside a boat trip that also helped fix the hide (again!), a small team set up some walk-in traps on Lighthouse Road to test this out for smaller catches for tagging. Unfortunately, there was too much disturbance for this to work. Dinner rounded off the day with tray bakes of lasagna / pasta bakes which brought happy memories for some (“We bonded over our love of sauces” was heard quoted!).
| Species | Number |
| Red Knot | 45 |
| Ruddy Turnstone | 45 |
| Short-billed Dowitcher | 84 |
| Sanderling | 40 |
| Semi-palmated Sandpiper | 20 |
| Dunlin | 59 |
| Total | 293 |
Wednesday 13 May
Another attempt at walk-in traps didn’t produce many birds but it did result in the first Turnstone tag being deployed – hurrah! The rest of the day had a nice mix of surveys on and off the boat and, happily, we found that there were great numbers of Red Knot on Back Beach – a happy change from the low numbers last year. The last boat trip of the day was disrupted by a young Peregrine who, after three attempts and many jumpy flocks of birds, caught a Dowitcher and provided amazing views for the team at Point South and Osprey (where it landed for a breather!). Mexican tortillas and side dishes finished off the day – adding to the international cuisine of the trip!
| Species | Number |
| Ruddy Turnstone | 1 |
Thursday 14 May
To try and help with the Turnstone tagging, the team split into a small bunch at North Bowers aiming for catches of around 10 birds to give an option of birds of an appropriate weight. This went very well with two catches made quickly and three birds tagged raising the numbers to four and providing a larger number of females than in previous years (and some ringing ticks with Least Sandpipers). Small drama moments include a cry of “no, no, no, don’t jiggle”, which took a moment to process given no one was near the line but then prompted a rush of giggles that had to be suppressed before the final fire! The day also included the standard array of surveys and happiness at seeing yet more Knot in the harbour. Dinner was Thai Green curry by Katharine (with chopping help from Ema, Cathy and Richard) but was slightly delayed following an SOS call as the boat started sinking when it lost its plug, but luckily all made it back to shore OK and the water was bailed out effectively!
| Species | Number |
| Ruddy Turnstone | 20 |
| Semi-palmated Sandpiper | 3 |
| Dunlin | 8 |
| Least Sandpiper | 4 |
| Total | 35 |
Friday 15 May
The increase in Knot in the harbour was too tempting to not attempt a good catch on Back North. Frustratingly, the Red-winged Blackbirds also seemed to like the nets and cleared areas (where we had shifted potentially wandering crabs), defending the entire catching area of the first, second and third sets of the net! Luckily, they left a small window for the final net where the licensees took the chance to make a fantastic catch of 461 birds including 161 Knot – the largest catch for several years of the target species for this project! Post catch, dinner was made by Cathy and Victoria.
| Species | Number |
| Red Knot | 161 |
| Ruddy Turnstone | 111 |
| Short-billed Dowitcher | 31 |
| Sanderling | 69 |
| Semi-palmated Sandpiper | 2 |
| Dunlin | 47 |
| Total | 421 |
Saturday 16 May
The weekend started with the last day of the current resighting period and so many people headed out to carry out counts along the coast from Pickering down to Fowlers. Three boats went out into Mispillion too which went well enough that the last boat missed our usual dinner call! When not out resighting, lots of people worked on a range of house tasks – from fixing and sorting kit, through sorting Knot flags and metal bands to more data entering and starting on the slightly overdue task of data checking… A little bit of non-survey related bird excitement was had in the afternoon with Slaughter Beach hosting a Red Knot festival down near the Firestation – one of the highlights of the event was a t-shirt printing stall and so many people quickly headed down to get some ‘on trend’ clothing. Lots of friendly stall holders from local wildlife and conservation groups and if it happens next year the DSP hopes to join as well. The final two members of the WWRG team arrived later in the day with Chantal and Guy driving down from the airport in time for some dinner (thanks to Philip and Olga) and to hear the plans for tomorrow’s catch!
Thanks to Jacquie Clark and Katharine Bowgen for writing this report. Cover photo by Rob Robinson.