Today was our first attempt at catching Water Pipit with the intention of fitting darvic rings for our project. We walked the gear across a mist shrouded moor to find the horses in the area where we were to put nets up. One of the horses was very interested in me, coming close several times causing me to discourage the behaviour. All the other horses began approaching and wouldn't be shooed away. There was a bit of interaction between horses, including some rearing and kicking - there seemed to be some frustration and we decided that they've become accustomed to being fed, and we had nothing for them. Keeping one eye on the herd, we put up two doubles and a single - being interrupted once as the group advanced towards our equipment dump, with one horse grabbing my rucksack and shaking it.
On returning to set up our base we found that the table had been thoroughly licked and somehow one of the bananas had been pilfered from the bag.
We didn't succeed in catching any Water Pipits, although we did hear and see one as we walked across the moor. Even the Meadow Pipits were a little sparse. Our most unexpected capture was a Snipe that landed in one of the three panel nets.
While we were busy trying to capture birds for the Water Pipit project there were quite a lot of birders on the moor due to the presence of 4 Great White Egrets. Chris got a call late in the morning and was also able to see two Dartford Warblers that had been located over on the far side. While there he was also fortunate enough to see a Short-eared Owl.
Totals: 30
Snipe - 1
Meadow Pipit - 14
Redwing - 1
Wren - 1
Goldfinch - 2
Long-tailed Tit - 6
Blue Tit - 5