High Tide 3.83m @ 09:26, Sunrise 08:15, Team meet time 06:30, Catch 09:20
The catch was split into three parts, with a recce on the morning of Friday 3rd January, catch set-up on the afternoon of Friday 3rd January, followed by a catch attempt on Saturday 4th January. Sunday 5th January, was selected as a reserve date in the event that the first catch attempt did not go to plan. The recce is a vital part of cannon netting. It is used to observe the number and behaviour of birds present during the tidal period. Based on this information, the best place to set the nets and the appropriate number and mesh size of the nets required to catch the target species can be determined.
The recce was undertaken in the early hours of Friday 3rd January by Ryan, Robin, Judith, Andrew and Flo and was a success with 400 Oystercatchers spread along the narrowest part of finger point. Over 2000 Curlew and grey waders were roosting elsewhere on the point and bay. Oystercatchers were the target species as there has been a long-history of colour-marking individuals at this site and a range of research undertaken. We also have a good number of colour-marked birds in this Oystercatcher population, but due to recent unsuccessful catches the proportion of colour-marked birds has not been topped up with large numbers of ‘newly ringed birds’ for a few years now. Moreover, a new collaboration with the University of Exeter is looking at environmental toxicity in Oystercatchers. The need for both increasing the number of colour-marked birds within the Oystercatcher population and data for the research study meant that the catch was a go! This is a good time to thank the 10 amazing team members in the group, all of whom volunteered their time to help set the nets on Friday afternoon. The team met at 14:30, and with the help of the Teignbridge rangers providing access and help transporting the equipment, a half net and a narrow net were set under the guidance and supervision of the cannon net licence holders Ryan, Lizzie and Robin.
After some food and sleep, a team of 25 met at the car park at 06:30am. A nice early start for the team was quickly followed by Ryan and Lizzie heading off to their hide close to the catch area. Robin introduced the team to the proceedings for the day, and the team began to walk out to the site. The walk, a pleasant stroll along the beach, led us to the first open area of sand dunes, where we changed direction to get to our base camp for the morning. Here, the sound of Curlew and Oystercatchers was apparent. It was silence from here on in, as any unexpected noise could have startled the roosting birds and jeopardised the catch. Thankfully, although it was the 11th day of Christmas, pipers certainly weren’t piping on that morning; otherwise, that could have been the end of any attempt to catch! Robin used this time to leave the remaining team and move to his vantage point which could be seen by all members of the group.
Figure 1: A large flock of Oystercatchers all over the narrow net!Once in position at basecamp, a few of the team took an opportunity to nap, whilst the others huddled around the radios in anticipation of any updates from Ryan, Lizzie & Robin. The first messages of birds related to a large flock of 1000 Oystercatchers roosting on the end of finger point. Despite being in slightly the wrong place (outside of the catch area), this was a positive start as the rising tide was likely to push them into the catch area. All was going well until the local Kestrel appeared over the Warren. The sound of Oystercatchers filled the air as birds began dispersing to a gravel bank on the north side of the warren, as well as other areas of the estuary. It seemed like all the birds had dispersed, and we held our breath whilst waiting to see if any arrived back. There was no luck with returning Oystercatchers, however, a confident Stonechat in the area provided entertainment for the base camp team. Being pragmatic is a key skill of cannon-net licence holders. Ryan, Lizzie and Robin adopted an alternative strategy and sent twinkling expert AJ to go and gently twinkle the flocks now settled elsewhere on the Warren in the hope that they would fly back to the catch area. AJ’s efforts were mixed with some birds heading in the correct direction whilst others landed along the spit and on finger point island. With no birds in the catch area, a long, patient, wait was had as the tide rose. Luckily, grey waders arrived in the area, and these flocks included Grey Plover, Dunlin and Bar-tailed Godwit. The first two of these species are priority species for the group as they are also part of colour-marked projects.
Suddenly, two more large lifts occurred again as swirling flocks of grey waders, Oystercatchers, and Curlew filled the air. A Peregrine appeared and hung around the area for a while, providing great views for the team as it frantically went after waders, disturbing everything. The movements led a large number of Oystercatchers to land all over the narrow net (Figure 1). An estimated 600 Oystercatchers were present on the point at this stage. A Dunlin flock also arrived and landed in front of the half net.
Figure 2: Extracting a catch of Dunlin from a cannon net.
Here, there were estimates of 50 birds, then 100, as the tide brought more Dunlin into the catch area, and just as the licence holders were discussing whether to take what was catchable, a new flock of Dunlin arrived to join the existing flock - taking the total flock of Dunlin to approximately 600. Lizzie made the call to fire the cannon net at 09:20. On hearing the bang, the team ran towards the net as instructed, and all birds were extracted and transferred into keeping cages within 30 minutes (Figure 2). A single Oystercatcher was also caught.
Figure 3: Members of the ringing team metal ringing Dunlin.
Figure 4: The processing corner where the processing team recorded the biometrics of each Dunlin.
All nets, equipment and team were gathered, and ringing, processing, and colour marking teams were set up and organised. All cannon net catches are restricted under licence to keeping birds for a maximum of 4 hours from firing to release. Through an efficient combined effort, the team metal-ringed, collected biometrics and colour-ringed the Dunlin at a steady rate before releasing the birds in groups of 10 (Figures 3 & 4). The colour ringing process was initially undertaken for all birds caught; however, the decision was made to colour ring a sample of the birds based on the time it was taking to fit the colour rings with the temperature which was falling throughout the morning.
There were a few surprises along the way. Firstly, the catch was adult dominant, demonstrating a representative sample of the Dunlin population as there is often a heavily juvenile bias in disturbed flocks. Secondly, there were two retrap Dunlin already bearing colour rings, one from a busy mist-netting session in November 2023 at Exminster Marshes and one caught during a canon-net catch in October 2021 at Dawlish Warren. Thirdly, there were two controls (birds originally ringed elsewhere), with one being a German metal-ringed adult Dunlin and another adult bearing a metal ring from Sweden (Figure 5). These two birds were colour-marked. It will be interesting to find out when they were ringed, see where they turn up and whether they are re-sighted in their respective countries!
Figure 5: The Swedish ringed Dunlin before release.After almost three and a half hours post-catch, the last Dunlin were processed and released. Looking at the ringing sheets, the final totals included the two foreign controls, two recaptured DCWRG colour-ringed Dunlin and 150 newly ringed Dunlin. A total of 99 birds were newly colour-ringed resulting in 64% of the overall catch being colour-marked. A great effort from the colour-ringing team! The Oystercatcher was also colour-marked, and a feather sample was collected, which will contribute to the Exeter University research study. Overall, it was a very successful catch!
Thank you to Caius, who collected all the equipment around 13:20 on the Teignbridge gator, some four hours after firing the net. The team had a debrief from Ryan, Lizzie & Robin and posed for a team photo (Figure 6) before briskly (as the team were fairly chilly) walking back to the car park. After some sweet treats and hot drinks, the team parted their separate ways.
We extend a special thanks to the Teignbridge Council team for allowing us to access the site and for their help with transporting the kit. Thanks also go to Devon Wildlife Trust and the Warren Golf Club for allowing our continued access to the site via their land.
Thomas Weston
Figure 6: The team photo showing the number of people dedicating their time to help!