A thank you to the team of 11 ringers who assembled at Harty. Conditions were ideal with no wind, no moon and drying out pools with just the right amount of water. A catch of 32 birds was successfully completed.
The catch was made up of the following species:
- Grey Plover - 11 new birds and 3 retraps
- Dunlin - 1 juvenile
- Bar-tailed Godwit - 2 juveniles
- Whimbrel - 7, 5 of which were juveniles
- Curlew - 1 juvenile
- Redshank - 7, 2 of which were juveniles
The Grey Plover retraps were all quite old, with a 5 year 11 month bird, a 10 year 9 month bird and a 19 year 10 month bird which is the 3rd oldest Grey Plover that we have retrapped. The condition of the ring on the 19 year old was excellent, far better than we have seen in other Grey Plover over 15 years old. One of the new Grey Plovers was an age 5 bird and was just completing its first primary moult, another was in arrested moult, this bird weighed 268g which is 48g heavier than the average of the other 12 caught indicating that this bird had most likely started to moult whilst in The Swale and was now going to move on to complete its moult elsewhere. All of the adult Grey Plovers still retained some of their summer plumage.