On a night when the wind was on the limit of being able to catch anything we managed to catch 28 birds. As you will see from the list below most of these were heavy species. Most of the birds were age 3 (first year birds), so no retraps. The Curlew coming to the pools were flying so slowly into the wind that they were able to detect the nets and take evasive action, many flying vertically up to go over the top. On a similar night without the wind we would have doubled our catch.
Birds caught were:
- Shelduck 6 (all juvenies)
- Avocet 4 (3 juveniles and an adult)
- Grey Plover 1 (juvenile)
- Dunlin 2 (juveniles)
- Bar-tailed Godwit 14 (only 2 of which were adults)
- Redshank 1 (juvenile)
This season of wader netting has been frustrated with various problems with our ringing site and the weather, so are totals are well down on average. The highlights are 10 Shelduck and 11 full grown Avocets. Very few fledged Avocets are ringed in the UK - only 4 in 2012.