Day 15 - Missing waders and a visit from the school

A slightly later start this morning; not by much but as not much moved yesterday morning at first light the nets we pushed back a little to 05.00. There was still some frost underfoot and it was a clear day. So, much the same as yesterday morning everything slowly started to come to life with the pipits first and the odd Fieldfare and Redwing.

The morning progressed slowly but steadily as usual with a large catch of 40+ birds coming around 10.00 to occupy the team. This came courtesy of the marsh and included a mix of Meadow and Red Throated Pipits and Lapland Bunting. There were also some nice Bluethroat examples today a couple of which justified Svensson's opening word on the ageing criteria: Complex.

As well as the Little Bunting making another appearence we retrapped a Redpoll juvenile ringed as one of four pulli by Dave in Team 1 only the previous week.

What were noticeable by their absence this morning were the waders until the second tide. A flock of around fifty Dunlin were up around the church during the morning by Smelly Gully seemed abandoned until the low tide in the afternoon.

Following on from the visits by the journalists there was a lot of interest in the group's activities. A link to the story on NRK (Norwegian BBC for those reading in the UK - very high profile) and some pictures can be found here.

As word of All Celebrity Ringing spread through Finnmark we were visited by Tormod and Anders who brought news of an impending visit by the Varangerbotn school.

The children duly turned up and were shown the birds and the catching process by Anders and the rest of the team - with Anders doing most of the talking due to his grasp of the Norwegian language.

The ringing team all agreed that it was nice to see the children's enthusiasm for the birds and there were lots of hands in the air when volunteers were needed to release the birds.

Catching went on until mid-afternoon. The weather throughout the day was sunny but with chill north-easterly winds. Afternoon wader ringing picked up with some Dunlin and Little Stint returning to Smelly Gully and the Ringing Station end of the shore.

Slight technical problem tonight with the detailed totals so in brief there were 153 new birds with 8 Red Throated Pipits and 6 Lapland Bunting.