Whimbrel Capture: May 13 - May 17

With the lack of capture opportunities in Box Tree Marsh over the last few days, we moved operations to Elkin's Island, a large marsh complex a few miles south of Box Tree.  Again, Box Tree has not seen a "high" high tide in over a week and a half, and the marsh isn't being replenished.  Our trap zones, which used to be soft banks of mud flats filled with fiddler burrows, are crusted over and hard with salt, with little or no fliddler activity.  Box Tree has not been "burnt out" do to over-trapping; it just needs time to see another high tide that covers the banks and brings the fiddlers back out.  Whimbrel are fiddler specialist, and are eating them in mass numbers right now to fatten up for their migration in about a week.

Elkin's is a classic site for whimbrel roosting at night.  If the tides are right (and don't get overwhelmingly high too fast), whimbrel line the edge of the island, starting at a point that extends out over a mud flat that is exposed at low tide.  Typically, we try to set up hours before this high tide event pushes them into the trap zones, so we don't disturb roosting birds near our traps, and to have time to properly camoflague the traps.  This is difficult during low tide, since low tide reveals "pudding" mud, which makes it hard for us to carry our nets around in, which weigh well over 80 pounds.  Just holding two 25 pound weights, one in each hand, is hard in pudding mud, because it makes you sink at least an extra foot!  At Elkin's however, there is a lot of peat, which is more stable when setting up traps.  The trick at Elkin's is to get out to the island before low tide and set up.  Otherwise, our boats have trouble just making the 15 minute boat road out to Elkin's during low-tide, not giving us enough time to get into position before the high tide roost event.

The few days of trapping at Elkin's had us setting up before low tide, and waiting in our boat for about 4 to 5 hours for high tide to push the birds in.  Unfortunately, our one shot at Elkin's fell just short of where the whimbrel were standing, and we only caught a few laughing gulls (which have a nasty bite) and a few dunlin.