Sunday 18 August
Ryan was the first at the Norfolk base, arriving the day before from Carlisle, and he spent the whole of Sunday doing various jobs including hedge trimming, mowing and sorting out catching kit. Thank you Ryan for all your hard work! Lys, Cathy and Lizzie arrived later on Sunday and also helped sort out the house for the start of the week. Hilary went resighting and joined in with the gardening.
Monday 19 August
With the first day beginning, people started arriving in earnest, the majority turning up in the early afternoon. The trailers were set up and lunch was prepared (a DIY affair led by Cathy) before a short briefing was made by Lizzie updating everyone on the starting plans for the week. Recces had been made by various people in the morning across The Wash, with some potential Lincolnshire options found – a promising start for the week. The Horseshoe Lagoon looked hopeful and had quite a few Oystercatchers in it but, given that the tide series was still rising, it was decided to not focus on those but to set for a speculative catch of Knot. In previous years at around this time in the tidal series, these have arrived there in large numbers on passage for a few days before heading off again.
Recce results:
- Molly and Lizzie went to Lincolnshire to the Horseshoe Lagoon and found around 500 Oystercatchers, 300 Redshank plus some Dunlin, Turnstone and Greenshank.
- Ryan went to Gedney but only saw a few Redshank.
- Lys, Hillary and Tim didn’t see much on the Norfolk side but it was acknowledged that we needed a higher tide to push birds off the mudflats more. Some birds were seen at Heacham, particularly Turnstone, which might be an option.
Most of the team set off for Friskney Village Hall in Lincolnshire and here they met the team members who had travelled directly there. Some people stayed in Norfolk – if a big catch was made in the morning, they would join us in Lincolnshire. Lizzie led a briefing which included team introductions, and a plan was made for half of us to go out to set a cannon net around 20:00 – this would be after high tide had passed so that few birds were disturbed.
Steve arrived at the village hall and gave his own welcome to the team. He went over detailed plans for the morning’s catch and how to set up the net. After a lovely lentil curry dinner from Molly, he then took 10 people down to set the nets on the wall. Base camp was also identified as a small group of experienced people would be set up on the island under a tarp, ready to get to the net as soon as we’d fired.
Back at the village hall, Katharine got out the new set of 3D printed wader legs and blank rings. Those who were new (or rusty!) had a go at working with Incoloy C2 rings, both learning to put them on and take them off. More experienced people then had the ‘fun’ of trying to remove some purposely misshapen rings. This all went down very well and the group hopes to use these more in future to get people ready for a catch before it all becomes too busy. The team was about to settle down for the night to be ready for the morning’s catch… when they suddenly discovered that we didn’t have any Knot colour rings! After failing to get hold of the remaining people on the Norfolk side, Michèle kindly offered to drive round to pick them up – thank you Michèle, an awesome effort!
Tuesday 20 August
The first two teams (one to be based in a hide – Steve’s truck – and the other under the tarp in the lagoon) got up and were ready to head out by 05:30. There was a little hiccup with getting the right kit (first day issues), but with some help from those still at the village hall, the teams were soon all settled in position ready for the birds to arrive. Sadly, the Knot didn’t arrive in the numbers expected. Some Redshank appeared near the inlet and Oystercatchers came down into the pool, but they didn’t get close to the nets as the water was still shallow. The decision was made not to fire. Whilst this was a shame, this catch option had been speculative and the tides would rise over the next five days, improving the option for a large Oystercatcher catch later in the week.
After packing up, everyone headed back to the village hall and ate a great first breakfast provided by Bob, Liam, Ruth and Cathy. Steve and Lizzie gave a post-breakfast briefing to go over the morning and discuss our next options based on the completed recces. These unfortunately hadn’t been that productive as the tides were only just really getting the birds moving and hadn’t covered the salt marshes that much yet. Ryan had stayed back in Norfolk overnight to complete a recce in Norfolk rather than come along to the Horseshoe. A plan was made for most of the team to go round to Norfolk to set on Heacham North North for a rising tide catch for Turnstone that evening; there had been some nice flocks seen there on the previous morning’s tides. Those setting the nets would leave at 15:00 and then a second team would sort out food to be brought to the catch. With the hopes that that would all go well, the next plan for the following morning was to do a full recce of the catching locations on both sides of The Wash.
Everyone then got to work packing up and sorting out cars before heading round to Norfolk to load up a trailer full of catching equipment for the evening! Before leaving for Heacham NN, Lizzie gave a briefing to say that the plan was to set two nets, high enough up to have a falling tide catch option as well. Due to the high winds, we would be using large-mesh, narrow nets (these are less likely to be billowed by gusts of wind than the small-mesh nets) so a large-mesh net lift was demonstrated and people were updated on what to expect. The team was soon ready and headed off to set whilst Liam, Louis and Freya prepared dinner to bring to basecamp.
The nets were set in good time and the Turnstone arrived just as everything was being finished. The licencees swifty tested the nets, we all grabbed some food, then everyone jumped into position. Molly did some sterling twinkling, slowly working the birds down the beach with Harriet’s help at the far end whilst the others quietly informed passing members of the public about what was going on – they were understandably very curious! After seemingly many miles of walking back and forth, Molly got the birds into the catching area and helped get birds out of the safety zone – the jiggler wasn’t being very effective and one bird had fallen asleep! With Kirsty on the firing box, Lizzie took the catch in good time before the tide had come in too far. The catch was dry and there was a super lift by the team; everyone working together following the earlier training. Despite then discovering the box lids hadn’t arrived with the rest of the kit, sacks were soon put to use and everyone got involved extracting the birds, getting them back to the keeping cages and showing some example birds to the public.
Lizzie thanked the team when everyone was back and the kit was off the beach, and then we all got straight into ringing and processing. At this time of year, we only colour mark moulting birds, which are likely to stay around for the winter, but this soon turned out to be quite a few more birds than expected! Two – and later three – sets of colour ringers were set up and steadily worked through the ring combinations. Great work! All in all, this first catch went really well with 52 birds caught, the majority Turnstone but also some Ringed Plover and a Sanderling – Rob Rob and Richard, who sadly weren’t there but were eagerly awaiting news via WhatsApp, confirmed this was a good sample to have. The day ended with much joy for all – back to the base house for plum crumble!
Heacham North North (Norfolk, cannon net)
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Turnstone | 32 | 10 | 42 |
| Ringed Plover | 8 | 1 | 9 |
| Sanderling | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Totals | 40 | 12 | 52 |
Wednesday 21 August
After getting some sleep, everyone got out nice and early to start their recces across the Wash:
Lincolnshire:
- Barley Mow: Liam and Flo had a nice 100 Curlew flock on a field with smallish kale plants (10 leaves each so potentially still a catchable field!) and many more on the marsh pre-roost sites.
- Horseshoe Lagoon: Bob saw ~300 Oystercatchers on the Horseshoe ‘mooching around’ the wall and Redshank near the inlet. Nothing further was seen to the south apart from flocks that wouldn’t settle.
- Frieston: Michèle and Lizzie had 500 Redshank and 2,000 Oystercatchers at the RSPB site, and also got one Dunlin and eight Redshank resightings.
Norfolk:
- Holbeach/Greenshank Pool (Lincs): Lys found a big stubble field with nice rough patches for potential catching of waders coming to roost, but on this current tide it only had 150 gulls. To the west were three Curlew in a pea field. The saltmarsh had some waders, but the Greenshank Pool had nothing as the reed bed had extended and was shallow.
- Gedney (Lincs): Kirsty got there slightly too late for the tide as there were few birds still out on the marsh; however, she did see 30–40 Curlew and some Golden Plover in a ploughed field. Over towards the Nene, there were 1,000 birds up and looking at fields, plus 500+ Curlew on a non-baled field for one hour plus!
- Proctors: nothing there to see.
- Terrington: Selena found a ploughed field with 80 Barwit for about five mins but otherwise just lots of birds flying through with nothing landing on the pools. Lots of gulls and geese were seen as well.
- Wolferton: Molly and Cathy had 70 Curlew in a stubble field and saw another field with 20 Curlew. Lots of Curlew and godwit in the air but they mainly stayed on the other side of the sea wall.
- Ken Hill: Katharine and Helen walked up to the wet areas near the inner sea wall but didn’t see many birds settling. A small number of Oystercatchers (30–40) came over and three landed for a short while, but the rest went back to the sea and those that had landed then followed. The northern pools had a few birds on them but not on a catchable site. They also went and looked at the inner Ken Hill fields, but didn’t find any waders, before heading to release six headstarted Curlew on Sandringham as part of some BTO work, which went well.
- Snettisham: Duncan and Freya had a very good morning walking the beach with ~700 Oystercatchers and ~300 smaller birds seen along the beach, mainly Sanderling from south of the dam with Ringed Plover and Knot. A couple of flocks of Oystercatchers went north towards the dam and on their way back they saw 450 Ringed Plover, 1,800 Sanderling and 100 Dunlin, five to 10 Turnstone and a Knot!
- Heacham: Louis had 10 Turnstone including some colour ringed yesterday at Heacham NN plus 70 Sanderling, though they were flushed by a gull. Heacham South had little flocks of Sanderling especially past the entrance to the car park where larger Sanderling groups could be seen on stone banks in three or four patches with 100 birds at each. As the tide covered the beaches and rocks, more birds flew north and some south, though flushing by dogs was an issue.
- Hunstanton: David C, Bailey and Harriet found a couple of dozen Turnstone (including one colour ringed) plus some Sanderling and Ringed Plover. Approximately 20 to 40 Turnstone flew up and down, but none really settled.
Back at the base house, data from the previous evening’s catch on Heacham NN was worked through, some maintenance tasks were completed, and a small team planned and shopped for dinner before starting to cook.
Everyone was thanked for their hard work as all in all this was a fun and productive morning, really showing how great it is to have a coordinated recce of the whole Wash catching areas. Following on from this, Steve and Nigel came up with a plan for the next 24 hours: to go out and set nets in the evening for a Snettisham Sanderling catch below the dam in the morning. After a short briefing, people started to unload the trailer before having a little downtime. Nigel, Steve, Freya, Lizzie and Kirsty went to the beach (where Freya and Duncan had their excellent recce) to make a plan for the catch position. Once they returned, we all had dinner around 19:00 so everyone who was setting could leave at 21:30 to be starting to set the nets at 22:00.
At the evening’s briefing before people left to set, Lizzie thanked everyone for helping with some maintenance and thanked the shoppers and cooks for dinner – Hilary, Ruth and Helen had shopped and then Bailey and Harriet had whipped up a superb veggie chilli. The afternoon’s visit by the licencees had gone well and the plan was made to set three small-mesh nets on a ridge at the top of the beach. This would mean the nets would be well out of the way of the birds and less affected by the wind. A small-mesh net demo was given before people headed out to set. The set went well with everyone working efficiently and, despite a small issue to fix with the cable, people were soon back and heading to bed to catch some sleep before the morning.
Thursday 22 August
The main team got up early to leave by 06:00, aiming to have basecamp in position in the dunes behind the nets well before high tide, and to have the ‘hide’ (Kirsty and Nigel) up on the dam looking down towards the catching area. Michèle, Hillary and Cathy went to recce Wolferton a little later in the morning before heading around to join the catching team.
When Nigel and Kirsty (and Helen as long stop) arrived on the dam, there were already Oystercatchers on the beach, some of these soon moving down and leaving around 100 near the nets. By 07:15 there were 100 Oystercatchers and 20 Turnstone near the nets and some 50 Sanderling further away. Some gulls were on the beach, creating a bit of disturbance among the wader flocks. The Oystercatchers only stayed until 08:10 – they were pushed up around the eight-yard markers by the rising tide and became more alert before flying off in the direction of the Snettisham Pits. At this point, Sanderling started to build up significantly. Over the next hour there were quite a lot of Sanderling on the beach, with over 2,000 in total between the net, car and the far end of the beach. Steve set off to twinkle the birds to the north down towards the nets and walked and crawled for around 30 mins before there was a catchable option. Birds twinkled up nicely into the catching area and, despite a little flushing, there was finally a good option and Nigel fired (two nets), immediately followed with a simultaneous ‘That was good!” from him and Kirsty! The nets went out well, nicely flat over the birds. No lift was needed as it was a dry catch and there was an excellent team extraction of the birds.
The whole catch totalled 654 birds, was one of the largest Ringed Plover catches WWRG has taken (112) and included a Swedish-ringed Ringed Plover and a Danish-ringed Sanderling! Also of interest, were several Sanderling that had replaced two to five outer primaries last winter (this strategy is seen in waders wintering in the tropics where their feathers degrade in the sun) and a juvenile Sanderling with several white outer primaries. Overall, this was quite a large catch and the whole team worked well together to efficiently extract, ring and process the birds, and we are so grateful to the licensees for their brilliant organisation and leadership.
The night before, Molly had baked a superb carrot cake for the WWRG’s 65th birthday, and so, before leaving the beach, we cheerfully enjoyed a well-deserved celebration. Delicious! A team went back to prepare breakfast before the briefing. Ryan, who had unfortunately been unwell the past couple of days and had remained at the base house, was thankfully feeling quite a bit better and the team were pleased that he was able to join them again.
The morning’s recces hadn’t provided much – the tide cut a bit so not many birds came over the sea wall – and Liam (who had kindly stayed round in Lincs for the first half of the catch – arriving in time to get lots of ringing done!) found that the good Barley Mow Curlew field from yesterday wasn’t suitable as a tractor had started working in it. However, he did see Oystercatchers at the Horseshoe Lagoon again, pushed right in around the mud wall. The one option for cannon-netting seemed to be to aim for these Oystercatchers and it was decided we’d spend the next two nights mist netting on both sides of The Wash.
Most of the Lincolnshire team headed back round to set on the Horseshoe, closer into the central island, while the majority of the Norfolk team stayed at the base with the plan being to drive round in the morning. The team prepared the catching area in the Lagoon, getting muddy in the process, and the hard-working Lincs team then enjoyed a delicious dinner of tahini lentils and roasted veg from Freya, Duncan and Katharine. Those in Norfolk were treated to a tasty Thai Green curry planned by Lys.
Snettisham fire (Norfolk, cannon net)
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Sanderling | 469 | 34 | 503 |
| Ringed Plover | 109 | 3 | 112 |
| Dunlin | 25 | 0 | 25 |
| Knot | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Turnstone | 12 | 0 | 12 |
| Totals | 617 | 37 | 654 |
Friday 23 August
The day began with the Lincs team getting up early to set the net in the Horseshoe Lagoon. This involving a bit of a change to the plan due to the wind shifting direction. It was soon ready, and the team walked around to basecamp behind the sea wall, where they were soon joined by the rest of the team coming from Norfolk. It was a blustery morning with frequent rain showers which meant that the muddy net setters were decently soaked.
Birds came in early to the lagoon at 07:55, initially at the outer mud bank and then into the catching area. There was a small window when good numbers were catchable, but we still had to get the team into position, and at that point some 400 birds were behind the net and 50 using the newer mud bank as shelter from the wind! Once people were in place, Steve considered putting them up and jiggling them back into the catching area, but there were also Cormorants around that we didn’t want to catch. It was decided that Freya would walk along the sea wall to encourage the birds to move a little, which did work but never quite as many as Steve had hoped for. Some outer birds started moving over to join the Redshank in the far corner, so Steve took the opportunity to fire. Unfortunately, due to the wind, the net didn’t quite go out as well as expected, despite position adjustments to account for the weather, and it billowed. As a result, it was a smaller catch than expected. Given the context it was an okay catch and, due to the worse weather forecast for the next morning, it was best not to wait for a better option. The large-mesh lift went well again, the team working as one to shift the birds onto dry ground, listening closely to the leaders’ commands. With the modest number of birds caught, it meant a lot of people got good training on how to extract Oystercatchers from large-mesh nets and some people got to practise processing measurements in a smaller team.
Of interest, two Norwegian-ringed birds were caught and one bird from 1998, so at least 26 years old! Tony, a senior manager from the Staples Vegetable Consortium came to see the catch and was really pleased to have been able to do so, not least because it was his birthday! Through the Leaf Agri-environment Sustainable Partnership, their organisation has been keen to be involved with helping the Wash Wader Research Group and currently give an annual donation. It was great to have him along to see what we are doing.
After packing up and heading back to the village hall, everyone sat down to breakfast prepared by Molly, Louis and Lys, and a short briefing by Steve on the morning’s catch started. During the morning’s catch, Nigel and Jacquie had gone out to recce Gedney where they found 200 Grey Plover on the pool. They weren’t able to see where they went inland, though they did find some Golden Plover. With the forecast predicting a drop in wind speed, the evening’s mist-netting plans could still go ahead but given the wet weather in the morning it was decided not to attempt to catch at Gedney on Saturday but to aim for Sunday instead.
The team then split into the two sides (Norfolk and Lincolnshire) with the former heading to the White Barn inner pools and the latter Freiston Shore (RSPB) for evening mist netting. Nigel went to shop for baked potatoes for the Norfolk side (Steve’s face was a picture thinking about this!) whilst on the Lincs side Bob and Liam put together a tasty pasta dinner to bring down to the setting team (much more to Steve’s liking!). The Lincs team also said goodbye to Molly and Dave C who both had to head off – great to have Dave across from Delaware where the WWRG group have been helping with their wader (‘shorebird’) catches for 25 years!
The Lincs team set nicely in time for the tide. The tide made a little and, it already being a high tide, it ended up a little damp (to say the least) for all who weren’t in chest waders! Although it was a small catch, it went well, and 25 Redshank were newly flagged for the year.
With a hearty jacket potato dinner followed by Eton mess between setting and catching (thank you Cathy and co!), Norfolk mist netting commenced. The team split into two to cover both the White Barn Pool and the Cannon-Netting Pool. Nigel led the former team and set seven nets, while Ryan and Kirsty the latter with 10 nets. As is so often the case, it was a beautiful sunset out over Terrington Marsh. Richard and Guy arrived and bolstered the White Barn Pool team, allowing Nigel to head back to the base house for a well-earned rest. Though it was relatively quiet on both pools, the small number of birds gave the opportunity for less-experienced members to practise their extraction, so definitely a useful training experience.
Horseshoe Lagoon fire (Lincs, cannon net)
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Oystercatcher | 70 | 5 | 75 |
| Totals | 70 | 5 | 75 |
Freiston (Lincs, mist-netting – three pools, 11 nets)
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Ringed Plover | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Knot | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Redshank | 24 | 0 | 24 |
| Turnstone | 4 | 1 | 5 |
| Totals | 31 | 1 | 32 |
White Barn Inner Pools (Norfolk, mist-netting – two pools , 10 nets)
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Oystercatcher | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Dunlin | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Redshank | 11 | 0 | 11 |
| Totals | 15 | 0 | 15 |
Saturday 24 August
As expected, the morning was blustery, and the rain poured. The teams were quite happy to have a cosy morning in and pancakes were enjoyed in both Norfolk and Lincolnshire. A few brave members did venture out to do some recces. On the Lincolnshire side, Lizzie, Steve and Hillary went to Freiston and resighted around 15 Redshank. Meanwhile Katharine went to Bowsers, where she saw some godwit and Curlew flocks heading north towards the Horseshoe, but none settling, confirming Steve’s plan to mist net near the Horseshoe that evening. Guy and Richard recceed Gedney marsh and found a very promising catching option for Grey Plover!
A plan was made between the two sides for the team to have a slight reshuffle and only leave six (Lizze, Steve, Duncan, Freya, Bob and Hillary) in Lincs to mist net south of the Horseshoe, whilst the rest of their team would move round to help set for the Sunday morning Grey Plover catch at Gedney (Katharine, Ian, Ben and Liam) before joining the Norfolk side to mist net on the outer pools at the White Barn. The four who were helping with setting met the others round at Gedney where they prepared the catching site (lots of mud larking again!), and a (hopefully) dry set of base camp locations was identified.
Overnight, the mist netting went well with the Lincs side making a nice catch of 57 birds, with lots of time for the small team to get some practice in on extracting and ringing (after a tasty fish and chip dinner). They also identified a potential new pool site but couldn’t get there easily without a lot of route planning. A retrap Grey Plover was a highlight of the night alongside 23 Bar-tailed Godwit.
The Norfolk side made a slightly larger catch of 117 birds. Two rows of five nets were set on the Outer Pool, a site which has recently produced some excellent catches, and again there was lots of useful extraction practice throughout the night. In order not to exhaust the team before a morning of cannon netting, we closed the nets once we had a good sample of birds and before it got too late. The catch included some nice retraps, such as a Swedish-ringed Dunlin and a colour-ringed Turnstone, who now sports a full set of new colour rings having lost one at some point. Dinner was lasagne and brownies from Ryan, Flo and Helen.
Over dinner, the Norfolk side had also been given a briefing for the Sunday morning lift. There are three creeks before the net, so the first base camp tarp team would run to the net to start a small-mesh lift then, when the rest of the team arrived, they would help lift the pocketed birds.
Sleepy but happy, the Norfolk team returned to the base, unpacked and repacked the trailer with kit for the morning’s cannon netting.
Friskney Pools (Lincs, mist-netting – 2 pools, 8 nets)
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Oystercatcher | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Whimbrel | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Curlew | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Bar-tailed godwit | 23 | 1 | 24 |
| Turnstone | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Dunlin | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| Redshank | 20 | 0 | 20 |
| Grey Plover | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Totals | 55 | 2 | 57 |
White Barn Outer Pools (Norfolk, mist-netting – 1 pool, 10 nets)
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Oystercatcher | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Whimbrel | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Curlew | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Knot | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Turnstone | 7 | 1 | 7 |
| Dunlin | 18 | 2 | 20 |
| Redshank | 70 | 3 | 73 |
| Grey Plover | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| Greenshank | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Totals | 111 | 6 | 117 |
Sunday 25 August
The Norfolk and Lincs teams met up at Gedney, early enough to finish setting the nets and get into position under the two tarps before the birds arrived. It looked good initially (“Nigel was right” said Richard, in regards to the decision to change the net location the afternoon before), but the Grey Plover never really looked at the pool as seriously as they had the day before, and the bulk of them flew east and were not seen again. However, some Whimbrel decided they did like the look of it and soon there were quite a few on the pool with many more calling around the area in large flocks. Nigel and Richard were watching the catching area from the sea wall while Lizzie and Steve were in the (rather uncomfortable) firing position in tarp team one, flat on their bellies in the marsh. There was a good nucleus of birds 1.5 hours before tide with up to 10 in the catching area and 25 further out but we were still waiting for Grey Plover so didn’t initially fire on them. When it was decided not to wait any longer for Grey Plover, and a bird had been jiggled out of safety, there weren’t as many Whimbrel left but this was still considered a good consolation catch, given the low numbers of this species caught over the years by WWRG. A handful of Redshank and a Dunlin were also caught. The second base camp under the further tarp was starting to get wet from the rising tide and so there was much gratitude about the decision to fire!
Soon all birds were extracted (without the need for the planned lift) and were taken back to the sea wall to ring and process. The team packed up the nets and before long everyone was enjoying the sight of a lovely bunch of Whimbrel, including the first juvenile that Jacquie can remember seeing. Some members of the public came over the wall to see what we were up to. In no time at all, everything was packed up and we headed back to the base house for breakfast, not before a few goodbyes were sadly said as some people had to head off for home straight from the catch. Breakfast consisted of a Nigel special, eggy bread, just what the team needed to finish off a busy week. Nigel reckons that, with luck, we might be able to try again for Grey Plover next month.
And so, we came to the end of the first Wash Week of the year! It was a great trip, and many thanks were given out at the final briefing before a plea for those who could stay to help with final cleaning and tidying of the house and kit before heading off home.
Gedney fire (Lincs, cannon net)
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Whimbrel | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| Redshank | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Dunlin | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Totals | 14 | 0 | 14 |
And that’s all!
Many thanks to all those involved in this first Autumn Passage Week of the year, especially our team leaders who put in so much hard work to plan and organise catches despite the challenges of weather and tides, and on top of this led the team with patience and dedication. We all felt that excellent teamwork was demonstrated throughout the whole week and as always it was super to have some new members along for the trip. There were lots of opportunities for valuable training this week and it is great to see this enthusiastic team gaining experience at each catch. Finally, so many people worked really hard to collect resighting data, such a worthwhile contribution to the group’s research. Thank you all, looking forward to the next Wash Week!
Trip Ringing Totals 19–25 August 2024
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Bar-tailed Godwit | 23 | 1 | 24 |
| Curlew | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Dunlin | 54 | 2 | 56 |
| Grey Plover | 8 | 1 | 9 |
| Greenshank | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Knot | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| Oystercatcher | 73 | 5 | 78 |
| Redshank | 129 | 3 | 132 |
| Ringed Plover | 118 | 4 | 122 |
| Sanderling | 469 | 35 | 504 |
| Turnstone | 57 | 12 | 69 |
| Whimbrel | 14 | 0 | 14 |
| Totals | 953 | 63 | 1,016 |
Resightings 19–25 August 2024
| Species | Sightings | Individuals | Non-WWRG | Total |
| Curlew | 26 | 25 | 26 | |
| Bar-tailed Godwit | 27 | 27 | 1 | 28 |
| Black-tailed Godwit | 32 | 30 | 32 | |
| Turnstone | 7 | 7 | 7 | |
| Knot | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Dunlin | 2 | 2 | ||
| Redshank | 57 | 29 | 3 | 60 |
| Greenshank | 1 | 1 | ||
| Totals | 150 | 119 | 9 | 159 |
Thanks to Katharine Bowgen & Florence Turner for writing this report. Cover image by Louis Driver.