A week in advance of the trip, the
forecast for the last Wash weekend was looking poor so it was no surprise to
get an email from Jacquie on Friday morning telling us not to hurry to Norfolk
as we would not be going out to set nets that evening. After an horrendously
wet and windy drive, I joined the other hardy souls that had laughed in the face
of the elements for a delicious Thai pumpkin soup and a relaxing evening.
Instead of trying to catch in
60mph+ winds on Saturday morning, we all headed to different beaches to do some
colour ring re-sighting. I went to Snettisham Pits, interested to see how it
was recovering from the December storms. The sight was a sad one, with three of
the four hides destroyed and obvious devastation around the reserve. The winds
were the strongest I think I have ever encountered and it was a real effort to
walk down to the wader watch point. We soon retreated to the only hide still
standing and tried to keep our scopes still enough to see some flags. Well, we
did see flags but unfortunately, the birds were too far away to read them. It
was fun watching the birds having as much trouble standing still as we were!
The walk back to the car park was more of a trot at times as the wind pushed us
along.
The afternoon was spent doing
jobs around the house and doing some ‘gardening’ along the access route to Snettisham.
That evening, the wind seemed to have dropped a little and we were finally able
to think about doing some ringing. We set three large mesh nets on the beach at
Heacham South with the hope of catching the oystercatchers and barwits that had
been on the beach during the recent recces.
At 05:30am on Sunday we headed back to Heacham,
settled in at base camp, listened to the sound of oystercatchers on the beach,
watched the sunrise and the pink-footed geese flying around the fields behind
the beach and crossed our fingers. The recent stormy weather affected the tide and
caused it to make considerably, meaning it was too high up the beach before it
was light enough to catch safely. Phil took the decision to wait for the
falling tide but unfortunately the birds were jumpy and spooked out of the catching
area. Despite valiant efforts to twinkle the other birds on the beach, it wasn’t
to be and we were soon collecting in the unfired kit.
As it was such a beautiful
morning, we decided to go colour ring re-sighting at Heacham North beach and
were rewarded with a very high proportion of ringed birds. As I didn’t have a
scope with me, I took full advantage of the gorgeous light to take a few
photographs (okay, so I sat on the beach for an hour taking pic after pic
after pic) including a few of ringed and colour ringed birds. The best shots
can be seen on my photography website In Nature's Image
 |
| Colour ringed turnstone |
 |
| One ringed knot in there |
On Sunday evening a few members
of the Group stayed on to try mist netting at Gedney. They were rewarded with
six birds so the weekend wasn’t a complete blank on the bird front. Let’s hope
the weather is a little more kind to us in March!
