Tag: banding

Horseshoe Crab, by Louise Clewley

Delaware news – part 2

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So the weather has improved on the whole, but we are still getting rain between being boiled alive in the humid atmosphere and eaten by bugs. We still have very few Knot on the Delaware side of the Bay, although we have heard there are over 10,000 on Reed’s Beach in New Jersey. The Horseshoe Crabs are spawning better now as it warms up so we are resighting Turnstone etc. and out looking for Knot appearing. Guy and Richard headed out to likely beaches to recce on Wednesday and Richard came up with an option at the bottom of Ted Harvey that would require two people watching the net – a plan was hatched to perch Richard on a hut and put Jacquie in a boat.

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Processing waders in Delaware, by Jean Woods

Delaware news – part 1

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It’s May again and members of the Wash Wader Ringing Group are heading to Delaware to resight and catch waders as part of the Delaware Shorebird Project. Group members have been helping out with the study since it’s inception in the late 1990s, contributing to both the fieldwork and the analysis and write up of the data collected. More about the study can be found here: http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/fw/Shorebirds/Pages/default.aspx

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Juvenile Oystercatcher on beach

Oystercatcher Recoveries in 2018

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Oystercatcher is the species for which the Wash Wader Ringing Group receives the most recoveries (birds seen or recaught away from the original place of ringing) each year. Of the 45 reports received from the BTO in 2018, 22 were of birds reported in the Britain & Ireland with the other 23 being reported broad. The majority of these were of birds ringed by WWRG and recovered elsewhere but eight were birds that were ringed elsewhere and recaught (or resighted) by WWRG; three of the eight had been ringed in Britain & Ireland whilst the other five were ringed abroad.

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WWRG in Delaware – part 2

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So the weather in Delaware has continued to be unseasonably wet; although not always as wet as the forecast suggested, we have been woken in the night by the rain at times. We had the same catching plan for three days, with the heavy rain and wind meaning that we couldn’t get out on the first two days – saves writing new plans on our wipe board each day and also means we get more data input and checked. We did get out in the afternoon on Saturday to try to make a catch of Sanderling for a PhD project – we found Sanderling on the north end of Prime Hook Beach and went to set. We had issues with Grackles and Blackbirds scaring the shorebirds but managed to get a small catch, but only two Sanderling.

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