The day started very wet and there had been a large amount of rainfall during the night which continued through until after breakfast.
As we arrived on the beach to set the nets for todays catch the rains had passed through but still remained very dark above.
Luckily another catch was made but only small and so I decided to pack up the equipment and tidy up, below shows the nets drying out below.
After the equipment was all packed away myself and a few others went out on to the sand-flats to scan through the waders. We split up and checked through the different flocks. Above shows you a black over white flagged Bar tailed Godwit which had been originally ringed in China.
As is always the case, you get in to position, get in to a decent flock of waders, get settled and as ever " a couple of hooligans arrive on site" no, seriously all jokes aside photo above and below shows you John & Jutta. John, a Brit now based in Hong Kong and the site manager of Mai Po Marshes. Jutta, originally from Germany, currently working in Australia where she works on Waders here and around the world primarily working on Red Knots where her work takes her to the Dutch Wadden Sea and Mauritania. I found both John & Jutta both really cool people, interesting, funny and good company whose company I enjoyed very much.
Above shows you a view of the sand flats after the tide and waders had retreated and below shows you another cracking sunset at the end of the day. No Australian Hobby this evening and consensus is now that the birds can not be in the area this year. "Typical" seems like my Aussie bogie bird will continue to remain just that.
