Swale Wader Group

 

It was a frustrating evenings ringing from a numbers point of view. Why, during the day time high tides there can be over 5000 birds on our site on the fresh marsh and then nothing much happens at night is a mystery. Lots of birds calling; Curlew, Teal, Greylags, Brents, Wigeon, Snipe, Lapwing, Golden Plover and a few gulls but virtually all of them managed to miss our nets.

A team of five erected eight nets in hope of a good catch but were disappointed to only catch 12 birds, a drake Teal, 2 Black-headed Gulls and 9 Dunlin, one of which was a retrap from our catch at Harty in December.

Using the barn as a ringing hut worked well, greatly reducing the effort needed when we use the tower hides.

Ringing Sessions