We started at Sheringham just before 7am. This is necessary to beat the people that regularly feed, and also to make a start before too many dog walkers are out and about. The Turnstone were very suspicious of both us and the walk-in trap, hardly surprising when we observed them identify and follow a woman, that comes to feed most days, along the seafront. The birds also went to wait at a spot along the sea wall where someone frequently tips out a bucket of seed at about 8am. They gave it a good 20 minutes but the bucket of seed didn't arrive. By 8:40am the birds were brave enough to take our bait from the edges of the trap and one bird eventually walked in. JAJ was processed and marked. JAC, ringed at Sheringham on 7th February was present. The other three birds marked on that date have since been recorded at Cromer just along the coast.
Next stop was Salthouse pond. Here the regular darvic marked bird 9JZ5 from Finland and metal ringed bird 6J4976 from Denmark were still present. We also saw a rather sickly Black-headed gull and noted that the resident Mute swan pen was unusually unsteady on her legs while out of the water.
Stopping off at Selbrigg pond we found that Scarface the long standing resident male Mute swan had started to drive off last year's cygnets in preparation for the next breeding season. Three cygnets have disappeared and only 4EPO, 4EPQ, 4EPS and 4EPU remain.
Looking in at the River Wensum, Fakenham we managed to get the metal ring numbers of two Black-headed gulls, both ringed locally in 2010 and 2022. Not very exciting, although the 2010 bird was also recorded in Sweden in June of 2015. A single darvic ringed bird was from Holland and details are awaited.
