Category: Recoveries

A flock of Knot, swirling over water.

Fieldwork November 2024

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Friday 1 November

By early Friday afternoon the trip members started to assemble at the base house, joining Cathy and Hilary who had opened up the house. Unfortunately, due to illness the team was smaller than planned. Molly, Cathy and Flo treated the trip members to an excellent meal of veggie chilli and jacket potatoes (in spite of having to cope with the challenge of a lack of chilli powder).

Following the meal, Molly and Ryan gave a briefing. They explained that while Hilary, Cathy and Rob did see birds, the number catchable was only just into double figures, so they were not sufficient to offer any cannon-netting options on Saturday morning. Therefore, the focus on the Saturday morning would be resighting, with some of the trip leaders also carrying out recces to see what the best options for mist-netting on the Saturday afternoon would be and if there was any possibility of cannon-netting on the Sunday morning.

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An Oystercatcher standing in a flock of Knot.

Fieldwork March 2024

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Friday 8 March – The Maltings, Ely

Members of WWRG formed a large proportion of over 150 people who gathered at The Maltings, Ely, to celebrate the life of Mark Smart who died suddenly in February at the age of just 56. Mark’s family dressed the tables with mementos of Mark’s wide-ranging talents and interests and five speakers built a vivid picture of his life. Mark grew up in farming with huge enthusiasm for agricultural machinery. Decades of involvement with WWRG and a deep interest in the science of waders then gave Mark a unique combination of skills. Working for the RSPB, he demonstrated practically how big machinery can transform habitats and hence the fortunes of breeding waders. Several RSPB reserves (and other reserves) including Berney Marshes and Crook of Baldoon will form his wider legacy while we in WWRG miss his friendship and commitment as Membership Secretary and Vice-Chair of the WWRG Trustees.

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A groups of Curlew feeding in shallow water. Three of the birds have white, uniquely marked flags on their legs, enabling researchers to identify them.

Curlew and Bar-tailed Godwit feeding locations on The Wash: do you like your worms with or without salt?

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If you have taken part in WWRG winter fieldwork over the past twelve years, you know that one tide of each fieldwork weekend is dedicated to resighting colour-marked birds. We have been applying leg flags to Bar-tailed Godwit since 2010, and Curlew since 2012, with over 200 people reporting one or more flag sightings. We use individual leg flags to both add to the survival data generated from metal rings (see Cook et al. 2021) and to look at how individual birds use the Wash and the surrounding area. Our first paper analysing how birds move around within the Wash has just been published in the journal Wader Study (Pell et al. 2023).

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Photo of a man crouching down. He has a Redshank in his hand that he is in the process of releasing.

Fieldwork November 2023

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Friday 10 November

Report on recce at Heacham Dam by Hilary & Cathy

We arrived at Heacham Dam at 13:10, when it was sunny with a rather gusty stiff breeze. A pre-roost flock of 350 Oystercatcher had formed just south of Heacham Dam. They were on mud close to the tideline and mixed with <10 each of Curlew, Knot, Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Sanderling and Turnstone.

Small flocks of Oystercatcher flew in from the north, but larger flocks flew off to the south as the tide approached. At 13:50 the tide reached the edge of the sand/shingle but by then all the birds had flown south, despite there being no disturbance by humans or dogs. At 14:10 we noticed a flock of 25 Oystercatcher on the sand/shingle c. 100 m north of Heacham Dam. These were quickly disturbed by dog walkers and flew off south. It was concluded that there was no realistic catching opportunity.

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Photo of a Sparrowhawk in a prey item, a juvenile Turnstone, on a shingle beach.

Fieldwork October 2023

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Friday 13 / Saturday 14 October

A small team gathered on Friday evening. As there was no setting, we enjoyed a social, relaxed evening after Cathy’s delicious and sizable baked potatoes and fruit salad. Saturday morning were recces and resighting across all east shore beaches (Snettisham, both Heachams, and Hunstanton), but no fields. There was a strong onshore wind, but clear conditions, and we found out afterwards the tide made by 0.5 m. For all resighters, the strong wind hampered steady resighting. Various parties left to look at all of the beaches, arriving between 06:30 and 07:00 depending on the beach.

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