Tuesday 30th December 2008 - Have rings will travel...

Sorry for the lack of posts lately - been busy with work and family commitments.

The day started at 6am with a visit to St Helens with Keiran Foster to have a go at catching some Snipe - we were successful with a catch of 4 birds (pictured), an earlier attempt by KF resulted in a catch of 10, an excellent total.

Then we carried on to a nearby retail park resulting in 1 Canada Goose - a new species for me, its amazing how strong these birds are.

Next stop was a trip over to Wallasey to look at a new site for catching Turnstone and hopefully Purple Sandpiper.

With 4 Moudry spring traps set-baited with porridge oats- we did not have to wait long for our first bird - a Turnstone (pictured), with the tide rising we had one more chance which resulted in another bird. Both were birds of this year (Euring age code 3) wings of 146mm and 152mm respectively. Here's hoping that 2009 will bring back bigger wader catches for the group - something which has been lacking for some years now..

AEH,KF