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.
Saturday 2 November
On Saturday morning, David and Molly set off to Gedney on a recce. Ryan, Ennis, and Flo went to the Snettisham, Heacham beaches and Sailing Club Bay on a recce followed by resighting at Heacham North North at high tide and then joined the team on Heacham beach to resight on the falling tide.
Five additional teams set off later for resighting at the following sites:
| Destination | Team | Left |
| Snettisham, Sailing Club Bay | Liam, Cathy | 05:45 |
| Heacham Fields | Hilary, Chris | 06:30 |
| Heacham North | Nick, Michèle | 08:30 |
| Heacham South | Sam, Lynda | 08:00 |
| Hunstanton | Simon, Louis | 06:30 |
The plan was that the teams would all reconvene at the base house, have lunch, and then go to set mist nets. After a traditional WWRG cooked breakfast prepared by Molly and a gang of sous chefs, the teams reported on the recces and resighting trips.
A summary of the feedback was:
Gedney
Curlew, Redshank and Dunlin were on the pool (c. 300 birds); there were also c.100 Black-tailed Godwit roosting nearby, as were c.150 Brent Geese. Unfortunately, the wind direction during the recce and the direction forecast for the following morning meant the Redshank and Dunlin were in an uncatchable part of the pool for cannon-netting.
Heacham
Sadly, there were no notable flocks on Heacham beach on the recces at dawn, with single figures of Oystercatcher and a few small groups (three groups of ~10) of Sanderling, Ringed Plover, and Dunlin spread along the extent. On the falling tide there were, c.1,500 Knot, c.400 Bar-tailed Godwit, a few Oystercatchers and50 Turnstones, of which 8–10 were colour-ringed. There were also 20 Curlews and hundreds of Brent Geese. There was also a colour-ringed Black-headed Gull from a Polish scheme (ringed as an adult on 19/05/2018). A colour-ringed Herring Gull from the North Thames was also seen (ringed as a second-calendar-year bird on 25/02/2017).
Snettisham
Snettisham Beach was empty of birds, with five dog walkers already present at high tide (06:30). Sailing Club Bay – 70 Oystercatcher at high tide (06:30), rising to a couple of hundred on the falling tide on the usual ‘sandy hook’. Pits – A lot of Knot, Curlew, etc.; several were resighted, including a Redshank.
Heacham Fields
14 Curlew were found, of which three were colour-ringed (one being a headstarted bird). Hilary photographed these birds to read the combinations later. Hilary noted that the circuit around the fields via Sedgeford and Fring looked like it had good potential for later in the season.
Hunstanton
14 colour-ringed Turnstone were present in the flock found on the beach.
Plans were then made for mist netting in the afternoon. The team setting the nets, led by David, would leave at 13:30 to set and be off the marsh ahead of any wildfowlers. Those not setting the nets would prepare some supper to be eaten on the seawall before the start of the netting session.
On arrival at Gedney, the team unpacked the trailer and headed out onto the marsh. At this point some of the team realised that their waders / waterproof trousers were short of a belt and improvised with some of the bailer twine usually used for guys. Ten nets were set on the leeward side of the pools in an E-shape with more than a hint of F (the wind was six mph ESE). Due to some great teamwork, the nets went up smoothly. Unfortunately, there were not enough guys, so Molly had to give up her improvised belt, which provided some comedy moments! After setting up a couple of tripods to hold the bagged birds nearby, the team headed off the marsh, getting back to the sea wall at 15:45.
The rest of the team were waiting at the base camp with a spread of hot pasta and quiches. The keeping cages were set up and the lighting rigs were put in place. After the meal, David gave a final briefing before the mist-netting team returned to the marsh at 17:15.
David led a small team off at pace to deploy the tapes, followed by the rest of the team. The first net round yielded approximately 50 birds, Dunlin, Redshank, and a solitary Curlew. Given this, it was decided to take the birds back to base camp so the Curlew could be ringed and processed. The following two net rounds yielded another 30 or so Dunlin and Redshank and a bonus Starling. The Starling was released at the net due to not having the correct passerine rings. This catch allowed many less-experienced team members to practice extraction, with the experienced extractors mainly providing training. At this point, it was after high tide, so David decided to take down. As the same team put up the nets, taking down went very smoothly and quickly, and the team headed off the marsh. On arrival back at base camp, the team split into the ringing (led by Molly and Lynne) and processing teams (led by Sam, David and Michèle).
Given the number of birds, the ringing team had plenty of opportunities to compare the plumage of birds of differing ages and learn about ageing criteria. They also had the opportunity to practice some double-wing measurements on Dunlin. The ringing and processing went according to plan, and the team headed back to the base house well before midnight. Before heading off to bed, there was a debrief, and the team leaders thanked everyone for their hard work and gave some pointers regarding extraction techniques. As there were no opportunities for cannon-netting in the morning, arrangements were made for Sunday’s resighting efforts.
Ringing Totals
| Species | New | Retrap | Total |
| Curlew | 1 | 1 | |
| Dunlin | 57 | 3 | 60 |
| Redshank | 19 | 2 | 21 |
| Total | 77 | 5 | 82 |
Sunday 3 November
On Sunday morning, the following teams set off to resight, with others remaining behind to tidy up and check data.
| Destination | Team |
| Snettisham, Sailing Club Bay | Ennis, Hilary, Lynda |
| Heacham North & South | Flo, Louis, Sam, Liam, Ryan |
| Hunstanton | Chris, Lynne |
A summary of the resighting trips is as follows:
Heacham North & South
North: 5 Turnstone, 34 Curlew and Bar-tailed Godwit
South: 25, 14, and 43 colour-marked Curlew and Bar-tailed Godwit among the hundreds along the tide edge. This included several headstarts and 4/10 Curlew tagged at Heacham in October 2021 by WWRG.
Hunstanton
17 Turnstone
1 dead Common Gull was found on the strand line, colour-ringed by a Norwegian scheme (awaiting ringing data at the time of writing).
Snettisham / Sailing Club Bay
500 Oystercatcher, 970 Curlew.
The team was then treated to lunch prepared by Molly, Michèle, Liam and Louis. After lunch, there was a debriefing, and folks started heading home. The team leaders thanked everyone for their teamwork, mentioning that it had been a relaxing weekend from their perspective as everyone had been so supportive of each other. Whilst it was a shame that there had been no option for cannon netting, this was compensated for by the 330 colour ring encounters of 182 individual birds. This is a significant contribution to the Wash winter survival studies. It was also particularly pleasing that these totals included resightings of 17 headstarted Curlew, released at the Sandringham (SD) and Ken Hill (KH) estates (see table below).
Colour Ring Resighting Summary
| Scheme | Encounters | Individuals |
| WWRG Curlew | 138 | 79 |
| WWRG Bar-tailed Godwit | 67 | 48 |
| WWRG Turnstone | 98 | 30 |
| WWRG Redshank | 1 | 1 |
| Headstart Curlew | 18 | 17 |
| Non-WWRG Curlew | 2 | 1 |
| Non-WWRG Bar-tailed Godwit | 3 | 3 |
| Black-tailed Godwit | 1 | 1 |
| Common Gull | 1 | 1 |
| Herring Gull | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 330 | 182 |
Details of Headstarted Curlews Resighted
| Release Year | GPS Tag | Flag | Sex | Release Site |
| 2021 | No | 2V | F | KH |
| 2021 | No | 2X | M | KH |
| 2021 | Yes | 4L | M | KH |
| 2021 | Yes | 5Y | F | KH |
| 2021 | No | 6H | M | SD |
| 2022 | Yes | 6X | M | KH |
| 2023 | Yes | XL | M | SD |
| 2023 | Yes | XP | F | KH |
| 2023 | Yes | XX | M | KH |
| 2023 | No | XY | M | KH |
| 2023 | Yes | YJ | M | KH |
| 2023 | No | YL | M | KH |
| 2023 | No | LN | U | KH |
| 2023 | No | KE | F | SD |
| 2023 | No | KK | F | KH |
| 2024 | No | NP | M | KH |
| 2024 | Yes | TV | F | KH |
Cathy and Hilary closed up the base house on Monday morning and did some more resighting on the fields between Heacham, Ringstead and Thornham, although there were no birds using the fields.
The consensus on the group chat on Sunday evening and Monday morning was that this had been a very enjoyable trip, equally enjoyed by everyone regardless of experience.
Thanks to Chris York for writing this report. Cover image by Cathy Ryden.