Category: Research

A team of ringers standing around keeping cages in a grassy field with a sea wall behind.

Fieldwork September 2022

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Friday 9 September

The first members of the trip arrived at the Norfolk base on Friday.

Tim went out to recce on the evening tide at the White Barn. On a new pool out from the traditional White Barn catching pool there were 300 Redshank and 250 Dunlin.

Saturday 10 September

Norfolk:

Nigel and Tim went out in the afternoon to check out the new pool that Tim had found on Friday. They decided to set a single net there with a team of seven in a hide and a second team hiding out on the marsh. Bamboo poles were used to support the hide as they were lighter to carry further out onto the marsh to the new pool. The second team couldn’t see from where they were hiding in the long grass but they did enjoy a lovely sunset. The hide team was able to get to the net very quickly, the second team made a good effort to run the longer distance to the net.

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Photo showing an Oystercatcher with progressive greying. The bird is being held, showing its face and bright orange bill. Photo by Sam Franks.

Why is that wader white?

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We all occasionally see birds with some white feathers and, unless the bird has no colouring at all (albino), we generally put the lack of colouring down to leucism – an absence of pigment in some feathers. However, it’s not that simple – there are number of different types of lack of pigment (van Grouw 2021).

Photo of a leucistic Knot amongst standardly coloured Knot at Snettisham Pits in Norfolk. Photo by Rob Pell
Two other birds with ‘white spotting’ seen on the Wash, both at Snettisham. Photos by Rob Pell
Photo of a leucistic Oystercatcher roosting with other Oystercatchers with standard plumage at Snettisham Pits in Norfolk. Photo by Rob Pell
White-spotted birds are seen regularly, but it is rare for us to know if the cause is leucism or ‘progressive greying’.
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Feeding Bar-tailed Godwits on the Wash, by Cathy Ryden

Monitoring Bar-tailed Godwits on The Wash

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Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica) are large waders which have a wide distribution across several continents. Five subspecies are currently recognised plus a sixth recently proposed as yamalensis (Appleton 2021). Bar-tailed Godwits are long-distance migrants and one subspecies (baueri) makes an incredible non-stop migration from Alaska to New Zealand over the Pacific Ocean lasting many days.

Two populations of Bar-tailed Godwit use The Wash: lapponica breeds from northern Fennoscandia eastwards to western Russia and the Taymyr peninsula and moults on The Wash in autumn, with most birds staying to spend the winter; taymyrensis breeds further east reaching central Siberia and passes through The Wash on migration to its wintering sites, as far south as West Africa.

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Waders at Snettisham Pits, by Cathy Ryden

WWRG is changing its name!

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WWRG had been operating as a Ringing Group since its inception. In consultation with its members, it was decided that becoming a charity would secure the Group’s longer-term future and allow it to take advantage of new opportunities to support our work. Alongside this we are changing our name to Wash Wader Research Group to better reflect the range of activities we do.

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Juvenile Oystercatcher on beach

Oystercatchers and shellfish

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Back in the winter of 1992/93 Wash Group members noticed far more Oystercatchers than usual were feeding inland – on grass verges, in the middle of roundabouts and on the lawn at Sandringham. The Oystercatchers we caught had stopped moulting part way through, presumably to preserve energy and we found many hundreds of corpses on the shore. This led to an investigation of what had happened and, of course, the answer was complicated – but WWRG data helped to unravel the mystery. The Oystercatchers had encountered a ‘perfect storm’ of unusually cold weather combined with low stocks of both Mussels and Cockles – the preferred food of many of them – and a popular human food as well. Work with BTO, Eastern Inshore Fisheries & Conservation Authority (EIFCA, then the Eastern Sea Fisheries Joint Committee), the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) and Richard Stillman at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), showed the importance of balancing numbers of shellfish taken by the fishermen and the birds to ensure that there were sufficient for both as well as maintaining a breeding stock of shellfish, so that the supply continues. Understanding these balances, what might change them and how to react to changes (Adaptive Harvest Management) is a vital part of managing fisheries.

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