Wader Catch & Short-eared Owl

I am a member of the Axe Estuary Ringing Group and yesterday evening we were at Colyford Common hoping to catch and ring waders. We erected the nets at around 4:00 PM and eventually left at 11:30 PM. The session was a great success with eight birds caught, of six species, four of which were firsts for the group! When Steve got his hands on a Black-headed Gull I thought he was going to pass out with excitement!! I took lots of photos and will therefore tell of the evenings events in pictures, here goes:

Setting the nets

On the left Steve is watching the four Ruff which hve just flown in despite our presence. On the right Mike's ...Well actually I've no idea what Mike's doing!!




The first bird of the evening, a Curlew, we caught a total of two of these and it was a new species for the group.


Then we had this gorgeous little Dunlin.

Fraser's favourite was the Knot - and it shows, no!!?

I get to stroke an Oystercatcher, beats a Robin any day!

This beautiful little Ruff was the smallest of the four that had been on the scrape all day.



I get a stroke of that too. Don't enlarge this, boy do I look like I've had too many early mornings/late nights recently!!?

Colyford Common in moonlight.

Packing away in the darkness was fun, I got stuck in the mud on the edge of the scrape and had to be rescued by Steve. Almost everyone fell over at least once!

We also caught this teeny bat.

The last birds caught were two Black-headed Gulls. Look how pleased everyone is!

"Aah, look at it's cute little feet" says Steve.

Steve's in love!! I wonder just how many times a man can say "WOW"!?



I love this pic what a corker! The last bird of the night while being released leaves Fraser a little something to remember him by! :-)

I'm stuck in for most of today waiting for a courier, what a joy, it's especially delightful when no-one turns up at all. Oh well, here's hoping. I did manage to take the dog for a short walk up on Axe cliff this morning and was chuffed to bits to inadvertently flush a Short-eared Owl from the rough, next to the golf course. I manged to get a couple of other patchers onto it too which was a bonus, coz I don't want to be gripping folk off, do I? Here are a couple of snaps of the beast, luckily I always carry my point and shoot for occasions such as these. : )

Circling high over the golf course



Hunting along the hedgerow

Also this morning I netted another four, yes FOUR golf ball ticks, and they are, in no particular order:

Titleist - NXT (not tour)

Titleist - Pro V1

The Callaway, wait for it... WARBIRD!!

and the Nike - One Platinum.

Ooh, the excitement!!

And just to prove I'm not stringing these just to grip off a certain someone, here's the proof!!