Tag: fieldwork

A team of ringers standing around keeping cages in a grassy field with a sea wall behind.

Fieldwork September 2022

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Friday 9 September

The first members of the trip arrived at the Norfolk base on Friday.

Tim went out to recce on the evening tide at the White Barn. On a new pool out from the traditional White Barn catching pool there were 300 Redshank and 250 Dunlin.

Saturday 10 September

Norfolk:

Nigel and Tim went out in the afternoon to check out the new pool that Tim had found on Friday. They decided to set a single net there with a team of seven in a hide and a second team hiding out on the marsh. Bamboo poles were used to support the hide as they were lighter to carry further out onto the marsh to the new pool. The second team couldn’t see from where they were hiding in the long grass but they did enjoy a lovely sunset. The hide team was able to get to the net very quickly, the second team made a good effort to run the longer distance to the net.

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The team sitting amongst the grasses at base camp, with the sea beyond, by Sam Franks

Fieldwork August 2022

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Avian Influenza (AI) precautions: With the spread of AI to wild birds (mainly colony nesters), we followed BTO guidelines and also introduced extra safety precautions to minimise risk – see here. There were also some sites we did not have access to for catching.

Friday 12 August

Recces were carried out early on Friday morning:

Norfolk: Cathy found Heacham Beach, north of the Ringed Plover fencing, was gull city with no waders present. Heacham North North at high tide had 33 Turnstone and 26 Ringed Plover.

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Photo of a sunset over the Marsh at Terrington in Norfolk.

Fieldwork July 2022

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Friday 15 July

Evening recces were carried out at:

Gedney (Nigel) – the marshes were flooded 45 mins before tide with around 100 Curlew over the marsh, around 100 Redshank on the tide edge and 200–300 Black-headed Gulls on the pool.

Beaches (Guy) – Heacham North North, no birds; Heacham South c. 2,000 Oystercatchers; Snettisham beach a few Ringed Plovers and Oystercatchers, but lots of Ringed Plover fencing all along the beach making it unusable for catching. Also noted at Snetts was a Turtle Dove calling and a Spoonbill flyover.

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Dunlin flying over water in Delaware

WWRG: back in the Bay

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So it’s three years since the WWRG team last came out to Delaware. Back then we bought our plane tickets and booked cars early as we were sure we would be coming over – then the World shut down… The only good thing was we got most of the costs of the flights and cars back. Into lockdown and virtually no fieldwork – it’s been a rough two years in many ways and we are still not out of the woods now – but we’re very grateful for vaccinations. This year we had to do supervised Covid tests and are living in a ‘bubble’ in a separate house – although we can use the basement of Penguin Manor to go and do data entry, but there is not too much of that yet.

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