Graham, Huw, Ian and I had an attempt to catch and leg-flag Turnstones this morning, but failed miserably. A combination of the birds becoming net shy and dog walkers were the cause. This is the second winter that we have been ringing Turnstones at this site and at this time of year they are less keen to come in for the food when the net is there, so this morning's lack of a catch was not unexpected.
However, we were just about to fire the net on about 20-30 Turnstones when a dog walker plus their mutt spooked the birds and they were reluctant to come back in. There are some high tides later this week, when depending on how the birds are behaving between now and then, we might have a last 'hoorah' before they start to depart to their breeding grounds.
If we don't leg-flag another Turnstone this winter the first year of this five year project will have been deemed a success as nearly 50 'Terry's' are fitted with leg flags and we look forward to receiving some sightings as they migrate north.
1 comment:
I used to help out a ringer, we had three net rides along a thin strip of woodland. Peoples dogs used to actually jump up at the birds in the net! You can imagine the damage.
Post a Comment