Friday 22 September
The weekend began, somewhat unusually, with a mist nesting session on Terrington Marsh. This required a small number of people to arrive at the fieldwork house mid-afternoon to set the nets on the marsh ready for the evening catch. Two lines of nets were set, one on the E-pool and the second on the cannon-netting pool, with Ron and Nigel leading the respective teams.
Saturday 19 August
The autumn Wash week began with the combined Norfolk and Lincolnshire teams convening at the Norfolk fieldwork house on Saturday afternoon. This followed some uncertainty as to whether the planned mist netting session would be able to go ahead based on weather predictions. A recce at Gedney had taken place earlier in the afternoon with glow light markers in place for finding the way across the marsh at night. With the go-ahead agreed, the team headed off to bed for a very early start the following morning.
Saturday 19 August
Some of the team gathered Saturday afternoon in the hope of getting the week off to a good start with some early mist-netting at Gedney on Sunday morning. There was some doubt due to concerns about the weather, but with some final checks on the wind forecast the decision was made to go ahead. A recce team went out to look at the marsh in daylight to see where to set nets and put out poles. After dinner that included an excellent Pear Upside-Down Cake from Lizzie, Lucy gave the first briefing welcoming everyone and explaining the house-keeping, rules etc (trialling the newly-written notes on how to run a Wash trip). Guy arrived with Victoria, the co-ordinator of the WWRG trips to Delaware Bay, who had just flown in from the States; everyone was pleased to welcome her to the Wash.
We recently received some reports that birds ringed by WWRG had been seen or found elsewhere.
Waders
Sanderling (NT88726) ringed as an adult at Heacham, Norfolk on 10 September 2010 was identified by its colour rings in:
The team assembled at the field house on Monday evening for a rather unusual mid-week weekend Wash trip. We were all confused by the days, constantly referring to Friday, Saturday and Sunday rather than Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The main aim of the weekend was to make a Sanderling catch with a second catch of Bar-tailed Godwit and Curlew if possible.
Rob P had undertaken a recce on Sunday morning and had located 150 Sanderling and 200+ Oystercatcher at high tide on Snettisham beach. Dave K had undertaken a further recce on Monday morning and had found 500 Sanderling on Snettisham beach. Dave had also looked at the fields behind Snettisham pits, where we had made a good catch of Bar-tailed Godwit and Curlew last summer. A small number of Curlew and 2 Black-tailed Godwit were the only birds present. No birds were found on Ken Hill.
