Good weather conditions tempted us out twice in the space of three days. On the evening of the 6th we met up with the Diversity Officer of the site who is a trainee ringer (IS) who had come to observe. It was forecast to be cold too so we intended to put a few nets to a) potentially catch Water Pipits coming to roost, b) catch Snipe and Jack Snipe and c) catch Ducks and limit the session to 3 or 4 hours.
As usual the 'dark' was actually quite light illuminated by the close by airport lights. We confirmed that the Water Pipits were roosting in the area that we'd identified as probable but caught none. We had a little more luck with the Snipe taking three on the first round. The ducks came in from too high and apart from a Lapwing that came in at the wrong end of the flash it then became extremely quiet. Still, we hadn't tried this before and knew that we might have drawn a complete blank.
On the morning of the 8th we set for Water Pipits in a similar area. The Water Pipits seemed to have formed up into small groups and came into our target pool on four or five separate occasions. We managed to catch one new WATPI and a Reed Bunting. For the first time one of our previously marked birds was resighted, 6A was feeding around the drying edge of the pool expertly evading the nets as we so often see these birds do.
06/03/21 Totals: 3
Snipe - 3
08/03/21 Totals: 2
Water Pipit - 1 (+ 1 resighting)
Reed Bunting - 1