No sooner had I got back off a short holiday, with our son and his family then, I was making sandwiches for the next days SCAN canon netting day where the target species was Curlew. Breeding Curlew in the UK are a rapidly declining species and a lot of conservation effort is going into trying to halt the decline. Most of the decline stems from agricultural practices and habitat destruction. I've just finished reading Mary Colwell's book 'Curlew Moon' and it makes for hard and, at times, harrowing reading. I remember visiting my grandparents on the edge of Dartmoor, as a kid in the late 60's and 70's, and wandering across the moors followed by the bubbling calls of Curlews on their breeding territories. They're now virtually extinct on Dartmoor. My grandparents had a cottage in Hayle, Cornwall, and eventually retired down there. I didn't realise at the time that the flocks I'd see on the Hayle Estuary, in winter, were probably Scandinavian birds. Many people still see our wintering flocks of Curlew and don't realise that our British breeders are in such serious trouble.
Meeting at the designated point we drove to where we would set the nets on an island in a tidal creek. This meant wading through the creek and then spending several hours lying beneath a tarpaulin and camouflage net on the island so we were close to the net to extract the birds when it was fired. A most uncomfortable experience at my age! We couldn't see anything but could hear the birds moving around us as the tide flooded - Curlew, Whimbrel, Greenshank, Black-tailed Godwits, Common Sandpiper & Lapwing were all coming into roost.
Once the canons were fired and we struggled out from beneath our tarpaulin trying to shake off muscle cramps and stiffness. When we'd ensured all the birds were safe from the still encroaching tide they were covered with hessian sacking to keep them calm and quietly and methodically removed from the net into catching cages before ringing and processing.
We caught a single Whimbrel in with the Curlew and as I'd never handled one before I was given the privilege of ringing it. I was really surprised at how tiny it was compared to the Curlew. Once ringed it was processed and a uniquely numbered darvic ring fitted as part of study into Welsh Whimbrel movements - see here for ore information.
We made an excellent catch of 86 Curlew - some were obviously quite old as the original rings had worn badly and they had to be re-ringed. All birds were ringed, aged, moult scores taken (where appropriate), wing length & bill length measured & weighed before release.
Highlight was a Finnish ringed Curlew, illustrating nicely where many of our wintering Curlew come from. The ring was unusual as they are apparently hand stamped.
It will be interesting to get the ringing details back and see when and where in Finland it was ringed. My guess is somewhere north of Rovaneimi on the Arctic circle.
Another great day and hopefully the data we collect will help in the future conservation of these beautiful birds.
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