North Notts cannon netting, 3-5 March

Duncan, Gary, Mick and I were part of the North Notts Ringing Group's cannon netting mini-weekend over the last three days. Work started with setting two nets nr Sturton-Le-Steeple by the River Trent on the Friday afternoon. The presence of c500 Wigeon was highly encouraging and so it proved as we fired early on Saturday morning for a record-breaking catch of 168 Wigeon, together with Mute Swans and Greylag Geese. We then reset for Sunday. That went less well, with an eight hour wait for the birds to get themselves into the catching area producing just 19 Wigeon. Still, with an average catch producing 30-60 Wigeon, everyone was well happy with 187 birds over the two days.

Monday was on to a landfill site near Retford, and it was gulls this time. Sorting the necessary health & safety training etc meant we weren't ready to fire until late morning. However, we did not have to wait too long as the very helpful 'spiky' driver moved a fresh load of household waste in front of the cannon net. As there were not that many big gulls about we took a quick catch of mostly Black-headed Gulls.

The best of the retraps were Wigeon from 2005 and 2006, plus control UK and Finnish Black-headed Gulls and a UK control Wigeon.

Total number of birds processed (new/retrap) were:

• Saturday - Mute Swan 2/0, Greylag Goose 4/0, Wigeon 163/5, Mallard 1/0, Coot 1/0
• Sunday - Wigeon 15/4
• Monday - Black-headed Gull 294/13, Common Gull 6/0, Herring Gull 4/0, Lesser Black-backed Gull 1/0

Jim

Thanks to Gary for the photos.