The lockdown imposed by the government in response to the Covid-19 pandemic lasted seven weeks during which fieldwork, including ringing and re-sighting, across the UK came to a standstill. WWRG had just completed their winter field work with the final catching weekend of the season having taken place in mid-March. Trips for several members of WWRG to Delaware and to Iceland were cancelled and opportunities for re-sighting on the Wash were all curtailed during the final weeks of spring 2020 as we were all told to stay at home. Garden ringing and local walks (hopefully entered into Birdtrack) became the norm.
Continue Reading →Tag: Colour rings
Fieldwork July 2018
Wednesday 11 July
The trip started early for Cathy and Tim who met the plumber who had come on Wednesday to improve the flushing rate of loos – it seems to have worked well. Cathy then took the opportunity to do the shopping for the weekend and started cleaning on Thursday, with more cleaning on Friday (it now looks like we have a new oven).
March 2018 wader resighting
Friday 9 March
The team assembled at the base house from 18:00 to prepare for a full day of fieldwork attempting to re-encounter marked birds on the East shore of the Wash. The preceding week had seen ‘the Beast from the East’ visit the East coast of England. This extremely cold weather front gave Lincolnshire and Norfolk arctic temperatures and the worst snow storms since 1987, which caused widespread disruption. Concerns were raised before the fieldwork session that wader casualties on the Wash could be extensive, and a plan was made to walk the tideline to search for casualties and retrieve any rings. Circlip pliers are a useful item to have in the pocket for such occasions, and the team left prepared the next day.
Fieldwork January 2018
This was the first field trip of 2018 for the Wash Wader Ringing Group and was the first cannon net catch by the group since September 2017. This was an extremely experienced team, with four cannon net licensees (plus one trainee,) as well as several ringers with considerable experience of both cannon netting and mist netting waders with the group. Sophie and Alyce had each been to one mist net catch previously and only Ellie was completely new to wader ringing with the group (although she had done some wader ringing with another group).
Colour-mark resighting bonanza
Friday 6 October – Sunday 8 October
With many of the usual team members away in faraway places, poorly or with car troubles, a small team collected at the fieldwork house with plans for a weekend of colour-ring resighting and the possibility of a mist netting session on Saturday evening. The likelihood of mist nesting was always doubtful due to an unsettled weather forecast. The forecast had deteriorated by mid-morning on Saturday and a decision was made that this would not go ahead.