Friday 6 March
Cathy arrived on Thursday ready to go out resighting on Friday morning and got 23 resightings from a flock of 70 Turnstone at Hunstanton. We had planned to mist-net at Wolferton, but called it off as the team was too small to work the site. However, Steve suggested that we could work the Horseshoe. Rapid messages around the team to see who could come to set, everyone bar Rob P and Claudia were to get to the base in time to go out to set. And most of the talk on WhatsApp was about where was best to get fish and chips.
There was a bonus resighting – when arriving, Molly saw a flock of Curlew coming in on a field, she stopped briefly at base, then, before going into the house, went straight out again and got one flag – one of the few Curlew we have marked at Terrington and has been seen around there several times. Claudia stopped off en route to collect fish and chips, having found a chippy that didn’t fry in beef fat so the veggies could eat. The timing worked pretty well with the setting team getting back while supper was still warm. We set 11 nets (newly made) in a T-shape.
Olly and Jane went to put the sound lures out and found lots of birds flying around and found four birds in the nets. So the rest of the team (who could walk out to the nets) headed out to help. The birds came in at dusk, well before the tide, so it may be light dependent, rather than tide related. Something to think about on another occasion. With a relatively small catch (50) we had time to enjoy the birds and Rob P and Molly both did some wing checking. On leaving, Claudia’s carload were lucky enough to see a Badger cub not far from the usual parking area.
Ringing totals for mist-netting at the Horseshoe Lagoon
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Oystercatcher | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Dunlin | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| Redshank | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Knot | 35 | 1 | 36 |
| Bar-tailed Godwit | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Curlew | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Totals | 49 | 1 | 50 |
Rob P organised the teams for resighting when we got back from mist netting on Saturday morning before bed!
Saturday 7 March 2026
Some people stayed back to sort the data from Friday night and do various other jobs. The resighting was really successful:
- Rob P, Harriet and Jane went to the Pits. 350 Curlew in bay 1 and several thousand Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot, Oystercatcher on the intertidal, a few hundred Black tailed Godwit in the Pits. Read half a dozen flags and one Black-tailed Godwit colour-ring combination. Followed the falling tide to Sailing Club Bay, picked up a few more combinations and got in place for the intertidal to uncover 2 1/2 hrs post tide. Had approximately 80 Curlew on Snettisham Beach and read a dozen flags. Met Claudia, who returned to base with Jane. Harriet and Rob went to Heacham NN to read another dozen colour-ring combinations mostly on Curlew, then came back.
- Claudia and Molly checked the inland fields and found: Knights Hill roundabout – 37 (one flag read), Bircham Windmill – 29 (two flags, but too far away to read), near Bircham Windmill (one), Heacham horse field 47 (eight flags read). Also, one flag from the flock on Heacham South Beach.
- Olly went to Hunstanton and Heacham NN at high tide, where he got 16 Turnstone combinations, then he went to Heacham North on falling tide where he read 15 Curlew flags and one Bar-tailed Godwit flag. He also found a flock of 400 Sanderling when he arrived at Heacham NN at 10:00 hrs, which had us contacting various local ringers to see if they could join us for a catching attempt on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a big enough team, so we are hoping they are still using that beach on our next trip in a fortnight.
- Nigel went around the Terrington fields, finding a flock of 28 Curlew, one of which was flagged.
We all re-assembled for ‘breakfast’ and then a team headed to Gedney to set nets, with one car later bringing supper round. The setting team put up five nets in a dog-leg. Everyone came back to the sea wall to eat, before a team went out with the sound lures. Lures on, birds were arriving, early, as they usually are at Gedney. A second team went out to the nets to help with extracting. We had a tripod set up, which was brought back early, as at Gedney, birds tend to come in before high tide and we started to close about 45 mins before the tide was fully in. It was (unusually) a Dunlin catch – we caught more Dunlin this weekend than in the whole of last year! There are now far fewer Dunlin on The Wash – they used to be our most commonly caught bird – probably a result of juveniles short-stopping as the climate changes and (probably) a major population decline.
Ringing totals for mist netting at Gedney
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Dunlin | 90 | 1 | 91 |
| Redshank | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Curlew | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Totals | 96 | 1 | 97 |
Colour-mark resighting totals
| Species | Total Sightings | Individuals | WWRG | Non-WWRG |
| Bar-tailed Godwit (all Wash) | 18 | 18 | 5 | 2 |
| Curlew (all Wash) | 21 | 21 | 3 | 2 |
| Turnstone (Wash) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Black-tailed Godwit | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Knot | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Oystercatcher | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Total | 46 | 45 | 12 | 6 |
Trip ringing totals
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Curlew | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Dunlin | 99 | 1 | 100 |
| Bar-tailed Godwit | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Knot | 35 | 1 | 36 |
| Oystercatcher | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Redshank | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Total | 145 | 2 | 147 |
Thanks to Jacquie Clark for writing this report. Cover photo by Rob Robinson.