Ryan was the first at the Norfolk base, arriving the day before from Carlisle, and he spent the whole of Sunday doing various jobs including hedge trimming, mowing and sorting out catching kit. Thank you Ryan for all your hard work! Lys, Cathy and Lizzie arrived later on Sunday and also helped sort out the house for the start of the week. Hilary went resighting and joined in with the gardening.
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Friday 26 July
In the day, Rob P visited Frampton and Freiston and resighted 14 Black-tailed Godwit, eight Redshank and a Knot. The Knot was an interesting bird, being ringed in Norway in 2019 and not seen since that year. Later, two lines of five nets were set on Terrington outer pool. These ran parallel to each other and the sea wall, with the two lines being roughly 20 metres apart. The nets were watched by Molly while the team returned to enjoy a lovely veggie chilli made by Flo and co. The briefing followed, after which we headed back to the saltmarsh.
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Sunday 26 May
On the first day of week three in Delaware, Rob Rob, Chantal, Katharine and Kirsty left for Philadelphia to begin their journey home to the UK. They made the most of their last morning however, squeezing in one more resighting visit to Mispillion Harbor!
On their way to Osprey via Cedar Beach with Flo, a new volunteer got stuck in the deep mud. Showing their quick thinking and fantastic team strength, the Brits rallied together to undertake a quick and effective two-pronged rescue with help coming by boat and car/foot. Well done all!
Not many flags were spotted in Mispillion, it would seem many shorebirds were already migrating northwards. There is also the thought that more are heading to feed in New Jersey, where there are areas for roosting closer to the feeding sites. The evening harbour survey was cancelled due to an approaching storm, but this did not stop Ryan and Guy from cooking up an epic meal on the BBQ.
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Sunday 19 May
Our second week in Delaware began warm and sunny and everyone made a great effort to survey the beaches over the morning. Two Mispillion surveys were completed as usual and, after the afternoon boat trip, Nigel, Richard, Guy and Ema returned very happy with lots of flag resightings. Poor Graham, however, did not have such joy on Osprey. Nigel and Richard had found there to be a decent number of Sanderling still on Back North and so began planning a catch.
Many more rings were opened throughout the day in anticipation of a big forthcoming catch. Ryan and Flo baked veggie lentil lasagna, using layered potatoes instead of pasta (which surprisingly worked very well!) and a couple of batches of flapjack – this really didn’t last long, 24hrs at most!
Nigel led a thorough evening team talk to go over plans for a Back North catch the next day.
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Friday 12 April
Some team members assembled on the Friday afternoon or evening and enjoyed a relaxed evening.
Saturday 13 April
More team members joined us on the Saturday ready to do some maintenance work and to get ready for the evening mist-netting. With the forecast suggesting the breeze would remain, after discussion we decided on a limited mist-netting session on the White Barn Inner Pool only.
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