Friday 18th March
Morning recce done by DW, MW and JC who had arrived at Base the previous evening.
| Snettisham North | (06:00) ca 400 Oystercatchers in usual place. No grey waders other than 10 Knot and 4 Ringed Plover |
| Heacham Dam | 50 Oystercatchers. |
| Heacham South | 70 Oystercatchers in a flock near the dam and 250 Oystercatchers plus a few Sanderling near the ‘tump’. 34 Curlew on the beach near the houses. |
| Heacham Far North | 200 Sanderling in a settled flock. Also 60 Oystercatchers, 20 Turnstone and 6 Ringed Plover. |
The beach recharge work which had been in progress the previous month had been finished.
Pl, SD and JC did a recce on the rising afternoon tide.
| Snettisham North | Huge numbers of grey waders on the mudflats departed south well before tide reached the beach. 400 Oystercatchers gathered off the mussel bed and started to come ashore in the usual place just before a low flying powered paraglider disturbed everything. |
| Snettisham Ken Hill | 200 Curlew were noted to be on two fields and pools inland of the beach |
| Heacham South | Small flock of Oystercatchers until disturbed by the hang glider. |
| Heacham Far North | 150Sanderling, 300 Oystercatcher, 35 Turnstone and a few other grey waders. |
Most of team assembled at Base in time for food at 18:45 before departing for setting soon after 20:00. Four large mesh nets set reasonably quickly. Bed, after a briefing, before midnight.
Saturday 19th March
Up 04:00. Frosty and dead calm. Team in position about 05:15. A large flock of Oystercatchers was on the beach spread along the tide line in front of nets and towards the observation point. However many of these departed, possibly disturbed whilst PI and SY were getting to the observation point. This left a flock spread between nets three and four. At this point the long-stop in the Heacham direction reported an early morning dog walker approaching. As it was now light enough to fire, nearing high tide, unlikely to gain more birds and with a big enough team to cope with two nets, decided to fire both nets.
| Species | New | Control / Retrap | Totals |
| Oystercatcher | 62 | 17 | 79 |
| Knot | 13 | - | 13 |
| Grey Plover | 3 | - | 3 |
| Turnstone | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Bar-Tailed Godwit | - | 1 | 1 |
| Totals | 79 | 20 | 99 |
The number of grey waders was a surprise! All ringed and processed, with the Grey Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit and Turnstone also being colour ringed.
After the catch had been made, NAC went off to recce:-
| Heacham Far North | 600 Sanderling and may have been more earlier. This included one with colour rings indicating it was one of those which had been fitted with a geolocator. Also 150 Oystercatcher. |
| Snettisham Ken Hill | 200 Curlew but in wet areas unsuitable for catching. |
With the evening tide being predicted to be somewhat higher it was decided to try to catch at Heacham Far North with the aim of catching the geolocator bird. Left Base at 13:45 and set four small mesh nets by 15:30. MW and DW had prepared food which was eaten behind the beach before manning the nets. The Sanderling duly arrived but only got to 150 and there was no sign of the bird with a geolocator. Although they stayed on the beach, much of the time directly in front of the nets the tide did not arrive and by high tide had only reached the same height as in the morning despite the prediction of an additional 1½ foot. This left the nets too far back to stand any reasonable chance of catching despite the birds being in front.
After picking up nets returned to Base and held the Group’s AGM.
Bed 22:00.
Sunday 20th March
Up 05:00 with the plan of arriving shortly before high tide enabling two small mesh nets to be set at the correct height relative to the tide and then twinkling the birds back to the catching area. The nets were effectively set and the birds stayed. Some did depart when twinkling started. NAC was stationed behind the nets with a telescope to see if he could spot any geolocator birds present and therefore fire the correct net to catch it. Several times the one seen yesterday was present at the junction between the two nets set. Eventually most of the flock chose to land in front of the one net so this was fired.
Photo by Ruth Walker
With small mesh net having been fired, extraction of birds was quickly done
| Species | New | Control / Retrap | Totals |
| Sanderling | 68 | 89 | 157 |
| Turnstone | 20 | 6 | 26 |
| Totals | 88 | 95 | 183 |
All processed and the Turnstone colour ringed. The Sanderling with the rings indicating it had been fitted with a geolocator proved to have lost the unit, like the other one previously caught (and caught again in this catch). This was hugely frustrating as the project was a trial to see if the leg loop attachment method would work on small calidrids. The answer seems to be ‘no’ for Sanderling at least! Equipment sorted, base cleaned and data cross-checked before people left by mid-afternoon.