Sunday 15 September 2013

Mist netting with WWRG

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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