With much hype about a ‘super moon’ we were expecting almost daylight conditions for our wader catch. Eight nets were erected in perfectly still conditions with the moonlight glistening off The Swale giving a very attractive aurora. We were then fortunate that cloud cover arrived blocking out the moon for the whole of the two hour catching period, during this time however the wind picked up to about a force 3 easterly, only to die away again so that when the nets were taken down there was again still conditions. Nine ringers enjoyed a reasonable catch with the bonus of handling three full grown Avocets.
A total of 44 birds were caught and ringed and there were two retraps:
- Avocet 3 (of which 1 was a juvenile)
- Black-tailed Godwit 5 (of which 2 were juveniles)
- Bar-tailed Godwit 4 (of which 3 were juveniles)
- Dunlin 18 (of which only 3 were adults)
- Redshank 14 (only 1 of which was a juvenile and 2 retraps)
Of the retrapped Redshank, one bird had been ringed at Harty on 23/09/2014 whilst the other was more interesting, having been ringed at Harty on 12/10/2008, i.e. nearly 7 years old.