29/04/12 - The valley goes under....

Over the weekend the rain continued to fall, with Sunday being particularly heavy, resulting in the river finally going over the floodbanks at North Duffield...... 

North Duffield Carrs goes under...

Despite the weather Craig spent the weekend scoping Whimbrel and tracking the radio-tagged bird from Friday night. Spells of light rain on Saturday allowed reasonable scoping views and resulted in 6 ‘new’ sightings of Whimbrel, plus 2 already seen this year (L/L-Y, L/R-P). Sunday’s poor conditions made viewing the birds difficult but Craig did manage to read off another new combination for this year. Details of the new birds for 2012 are listed below, we’re now upto 17 colour-ringed Whimbrel sightings since their arrival two weeks ago – this is the most returning birds we’ve recorded in one year since the project began back in 2004! 

Craig managed to track the radio tagged Whimbrel pretty much none stop over the weekend bar losing it for a few hours on Sunday. It took him to a new roost site, presumably chosen due to the fact that the birds had been flooded off their original roost site (Wheldrake) followed shortly after by the second site they had moved to (Thorganby) which went under on Friday night. It has also led us to two new fields that we haven’t seen used in the past (but they may have been, we just haven’t known about it!) as well as several other fields used over the years.

New colour-ringed Whimbrel sightings for 2012:

Whimbrel: White/Yellow-Pink

2010 - Ringed on 26^th April.

2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 27^th April.

Whimbrel: White/Yellow-Red

2008 - Ringed on 25^th April.

2009 - Re-sighted by DT & PR on 20^th & 25^th April.

2011 - Re-sighted by PR on 20^th & 25^th April.

2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 28^th April.

Whimbrel: Orange/Orange-Red

2008 - Ringed on 25^th April.

2009 - Re-sighted by PR on 24^th April.

2011 - Re-sighted by PR on 25^th April.

2012 - Re-sighted on 28^th April.

Whimbrel: Yellow/Orange-Lime

2005 - Ringed on 2^nd May, re-sighted on the 10^th.

2006 - Re-sighted by CR & DT on 2^nd May.

2007 - Re-sighted by CR & DT on 30^th April & 5^th May.

2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 28^th April.

Whimbrel: Red/Yellow-Yellow

2008 - Ringed on 25^th April.

2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 28^th April.

Whimbrel: Yellow/Red-Red

2008 - Ringed on 25^th April.

2009 - Re-sighted by PR on 29^th April.

2011 - Re-sighted by PR on 21^st April.

2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 28^th April.

Whimbrel: Yellow/Red-Pink

2010 - Ringed on 26^th April.

2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 29^th April.

From the 100 birds colour-ringed since 2004, we have now had a re-sighting rate back at the roost in a subsequent year of over 50% - a fantastic result with probably in the order of 200 individual re-sightings.  Interestingly, we’ve just had the one re-sighting away from the valley - a bird seen on the Ythan Estuary two autumn’s running.