Tag: resighting

The team resighting at Hunstanton Cliffs in beautiful light conditions. Photo by Hilary Hodkinson.

Resighting weekend December 2022

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Friday 9 December

Sam, David, Hilary and Cathy met up at the base on Friday evening. Cathy had resighted at Snettisham beach, observing one very regular Curlew – orange XK.

Saturday 10 December

Weather conditions were grey, still and cold with the temperature about 2 degrees C.

Cathy went to Heacham Dam to resight over the falling tide. A flock of 60 Knot were feeding on the mussel bed. There were three WWRG-flagged birds, two newly marked a couple of weeks before and the third remains unknown, as the flag was so badly stained it was unreadable. A regular GreyPlover (E6) was also there and three Curlew. Several Bar-Tailed Godwit and Turnstone were seen but none of these were colour-marked. Cathy then headed to Hunstanton.

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Bird ringers standing near mist nets set on a wet marsh. The sun is setting.

Fieldwork October 2022

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Tim, Selena and Dave arrived at the Norfolk base earlier in the week to work on house and garden maintenance. In particular they removed a large amount of the excess vegetation that had grown up in the garden and Dave in particular helped wire up the potential decoy store. Cathy joined them for some of the time and Mark also helped out but wasn’t able to stay on for the weekend. This team put in a significant amount of effort over these few days and so deserve a big thank you from the group!

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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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Feeding Bar-tailed Godwits on the Wash, by Cathy Ryden

Monitoring Bar-tailed Godwits on The Wash

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Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica) are large waders which have a wide distribution across several continents. Five subspecies are currently recognised plus a sixth recently proposed as yamalensis (Appleton 2021). Bar-tailed Godwits are long-distance migrants and one subspecies (baueri) makes an incredible non-stop migration from Alaska to New Zealand over the Pacific Ocean lasting many days.

Two populations of Bar-tailed Godwit use The Wash: lapponica breeds from northern Fennoscandia eastwards to western Russia and the Taymyr peninsula and moults on The Wash in autumn, with most birds staying to spend the winter; taymyrensis breeds further east reaching central Siberia and passes through The Wash on migration to its wintering sites, as far south as West Africa.

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Yellow dumper truck moving along a sandy beach with a bright blue sky behind. Photo by Lizzie Grayshon

Fieldwork February 2022

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Thursday 17 February

In anticipation of the coming Storm Eunice, Kirsty arrived at the base late afternoon, opened up and replaced the dripping tap glands. Lizzie and Ryan arrived later in the evening after collecting keys from Cathy. Plans were made for recces in the morning, provided it did not look too windy.

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