On the nightshift

I have posted several times about a very important site of ours which is being managed to attract Common and Jack Snipe as a safe roosting place during the day after they have been out in the fields at night feeding on soil invertebrates.
To date we have been using ( with varying degrees of success) thermal imaging equipment to find and ring Jack Snipe during the day. Unfortunately this doesn't work for Common Snipe which adopt the usual avian defence tactic--of flying away, as soon as we get anywhere near. So for some time I have been planning a trip to target Common Snipe by trying to catch them during the hours of darkness when they are returning to the site after feeding in the fields. Finally last night the weather conditions coincided with the availability of sufficient team members daft enough to join me.......
It was a bit of an experiment because we weren't quite sure what time the birds would return. So we set the nets on Saturday evening and a relay of members checked them every half hour right through the night. As things turned out we have learned a lot from the exercise--the main lesson being that we might just as well have had a decent night's sleep, turned up at about 5 am to set the nets and not be so tired for the rest of Sunday!! What we found was that the birds returned in the 2 hour period before sunrise.
So, lesson learned but what a splendid time we had--with trainees Jen and Kev W, getting some great experience on a range of issues. OK--so what about the birds I hear you asking in frustration......
We ringed 1 Meadow Pipit, 1 Barn Owl, 6 Common Snipe and an incredible 15 Jack Snipe ( plus we caught 3 re-trapped Jack Snipe)

Here's the Barn Owl--what a splendid bird, with the almost unspotted breast and belly showing it to be a male.

 

 

This is a Common Snipe wihich is about three times the size of a Jack Snipe with a proportionately longer bill as you can see form the picture of a Jack Snipe below

We all returned home tired but excited and pleased with the result. A big thanks to Ben, Kev C and Paul for their help. It will be interesting to see if I can persuade enough of the team to try again in a month or so, and to see if our birds stick around at the site of if there is a general movement of birds through it.

Back to feeding station ringing next week...........