Two days ringing barn owls didn’t
seem like quite enough excitement for one weekend, so Sunday afternoon saw me
heading over to Norfolk for an evening’s mist netting on Terrington Marsh. A
small team assembled at base and pretty soon we were all trundling along to the
sea wall with the mist nets and poles. We set three sets of nets, one on ‘E’
pool, one on the cannon netting pool and one between these two. These last two
pools hadn’t been used before as mist netting pools (to my knowledge anyway) but
often held large numbers of waders (judging by the noise heard coming from them
during previous mist netting sessions on the marsh) so hopes were quite high
for a good catch.
After a quick tea, we returned to
the marsh to set the sound lures and wait for the birds to arrive. We didn’t
have to wait for long. Catching on all three sets was steady throughout the
evening and we were kept busy until a little after high tide when we took the
nets down. The team I was in was last off the marsh and by the time we were
back, the processing team was up and running and birds were already being
ringed. This meant that there was nothing for me to do but to pick up a pair of
pliers and put some rings on birds J
We ended up with another good
sample of redshank to add to the samples made earlier in the summer. In
addition, we caught about eight ringed plover (very good number for mist
netting), a few dunlin, a knot and the star bird of the evening… a little
stint! Most people in the group had never seen one of these in the hand so I
was feeling very lucky to have been there that night. It was a stunning little
bird and, whilst every trip to Norfolk is worthwhile, this made it all the more
special! I am looking forward to seeing what the October trip brings.
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