Curlew and winter weather

If there is one preoccupation that unites the British above all others, it is discussion of the weather. The variable dominance of arctic maritime, polar maritime, polar continental, tropical maritime and tropical continental air masses cause rapid and variable changes in weather (and much conversation). Wind and rain can severely curtail fieldwork undertaken by the group; consequently following online weather predictions is fast becoming a collective obsession. The cold, snowy spell last year (22 February – 5 March) was so unusual that the press dubbed it ‘The Beast from the East’. This cold wave was officially named ‘Anticyclone Hartmut’, and brought widespread, unusually low temperatures and heavy snowfall to large areas. It combined with Storm Emma, which made landfall in southwest England and southern Ireland on 2 March. A milder repeat episode dubbed the ‘Mini-Beast from the East’ occurred on the weekend of 17 March 2018.

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Spoonies galore

So our second week started with brunch at 11:00 hrs after a few hours sleep following our first overnight mist-netting session. We headed out to recce/scan the new waterpark (under development) and the rice paddies at Taoizini to look for both mist-netting options for that night on the paddy fields and future canon-netting options on the water park. We set nets on two rice paddies again and had another amazing night with with 299 birds caught including six Spoon-billed Sandpipers (SBS) – amazing. Back to the hotel and bed at dawn this time – strange, we are becoming largely nocturnal, but are also up during the day…

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WWRG members helping Spoonies

Since the early days of WWRG group members have headed out across the world to help on wader projects elsewhere. This year is no exception and this month group members are part of a team working in Jiangsu on the Yellow Sea in China. The team, working with Nanjing Normal University, is aiming to catch and mark Spoon-billed Sandpipers (SBS) to find out more about where this endangered and charismatic species goes, as well as being able to work out population size. We are also aiming to catch a range of other shorebird species, both to assist local studies and to help train other members of the team.

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WWRG in Delaware – part 3

As we only had two Turnstone in the catch on 24 May, we went for a small catch on 25 May on Prime Hook Beach, hoping to repeat the 22 May catch. We found Turnstone in the same place, but they were moving around a lot so we only managed a very small catch. Others spent the day out resighting and surveying.

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WWRG in Delaware – part 2

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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