Today was a very nice catching day. It was pretty warm and without too much wind. Although the wind is not coming from the best direction, it was southsouthwest where anything with east is preferred. In the standardized time, an adult male black redstart, another reed warbler ( still waiting for that Blyth/Paddyfield…) and a house martin. But the best species was caught after the lunch in the form of a female red backed shrike. Although there are 2/3/4 breeding pairs in the close by bog, we did not catch one yet. In the mourning I was very jealous on Gedser where they had a male yesterday, and we managed to catch one. What striked me the most was the starling like tail, such a shame that I am associating this species with the RB shrike. Unfortunately, Bello was on the road with his car again (on that later on more), but David managed to take some nice pictures ( for now, my phonepic is added). The rest of the day was slow, but keeping the nets open up until dinner definitely rewarded itself. And the barred warbler at Skagen was another bit of motivation.

So now on to Bello and his car. Three days ago it got repaired, the accu generator needed to be replaced. Since then, it works better according to Bello, so that is really nice. Bello wanted to ride some around in the area where the wolf has been seen this spring. So Bello took a sandy road and taught that it would be fine. But the further he came, the looser the sand became. So after some time he got stuck and digged the car in. With David around, he could help him. When David arrived, they could not manage to get it out so they were in need to call a truck to pull it out. Luckily it succeeded and the car is at the station again. End good, all good.

Ringing totals:

House martin 1/0

Jernspurv 2/0

Black redstart 1/0

Stonechat 1/0

Reed warbler 1/0

Lesser whitethroat 0/2

Common whitethroat 3/1

Chiffchaff 1/1

Crested tit 3/1

Great tit 0/3

Red backed shrike 1/0

Starling 1/0

Tree sparrow 2/0

Chaffinch 1/0

Lesser redpoll 1/0

New birds/ recaptures: 19/9

Red backed shrike female

Black redstart adult male, the first one this spring

Juvenile stonechat

Juvenile Tree sparrows, if you look carefully you see some bars on the feathers. These are called 'Fault bars' and these are basically weak points in the feather caused by a food shortage. Because all the feathers grow at the same time, you can find them on the flight feathers. In tree sparrows all feathers will be moulted in late summer and then the feathers will be of better quality. Growth bars look a bit stupid, but in the nest birds are most vulnerable so get them out as soon as possible is more important than the quality of the feathers. When feathers are made of really bad quality and will break off, the bird will start moulting it.

I was in Aarhus today so Henrik was alone this morning at the observation.
He found a Cornbunting and a 2k Mediterranean Gull. I have been looking for the Med gull the whole season so im a little sad i was home when it finally turned up. 

Menno caught a White Wagtail and in the evening he joined Ulf on the beach ringing Little Terns.
David joined us in the evening and wil stay this weekend so tomorrow we have a full team for the sea watch.
Ulf Bertelsen som står for Dværgterne undersøgelserne ankom omkring middag, og kørte på stranden for at tjekke Dværgternerne. Han kunne berette om 3 par med unger, 5 liggende på rede og et par kurtiserende. Så det er indtil videre en succes med vores udhegning.


1st picture, White Wagtail, 2nd and 3rd, Little Terns: all photos by Menno



People at the station: Menno, Henrik, Mikkel, David og Bent

After some days ringing with Morten, today I had to do the ringing alone again. Unfortunately the weather did not fully corporate because the nets could not be opened until 9. On the second round there was a rosefinch in the nets. This was my first rosefinch in Denmark, so this was very nice. For the next one I hope it will be an adult male, since they are more beautiful than the plain females. In the maintime Henrik was birding in the area and could see it as well, shortly before he heard a Caspian tern calling. Bent was also at the station, so he saw it as well. In the mean time, Bello was at Skallingen so he missed it.

In the afternoon Bello went to bring some stuff back to Århus.

Rosefinch

Ringing totals:

Garden warbler 3/0

Blackcap 1/0

Chiffchaff 1/0

Willow warbler 1/0

Crested tit 0/2

Rosefinch 0/1

Total 6/3

People at the station: Bent, Henrik, Bello and Menno

Igen til morgen regnfuldt, så begrænset med fugle i området. En Kærsanger sad og sang ved militærtårnet og Mikkel så en Lærkefalk trække mod øst.
På stranden har Dværgternerne travlt med at piske ind og ud af hegningen, hvilket tyder på at der må være unger i flere af rederne. Kunne dog ikke tjekke nærmere, da der skydning. Det har der været de sidste par dage, hvilket har være meget positivt, så Dværgternerne ikke er blevet forstyrret mens regnen har silet ned, og har kunnet ligge i fred på rederne og varme ungerne.
Morten trak i dag igen mod  nordøst. Charlotte kom i går for at køre ham til Stavtrup i dag,  så han kan passe sin CES ringmærkning. Inden han forlod Blåvand fik han taget nogle flere WNV prøver.
Blåvand Fuglestation siger stort tak til Morten for indsatsen og håber at se ham igen, måske senere på året. 

Ringmærkning:

Jernspurv 1
Sangdrossel 2
Sivsanger 1
Gulbug 2
Tornsanger 1
Munk 1
Gransanger 1
Løvsanger 2
Topmejse 2
Skovspurv 2
Grønsisken 2
Tornirisk 2

I alt 19

Today was another day where we could practice how to quickly open and close the nets again. I can not remember having bad days like this in March, and now it is summer…. The frustrating thing today was how wrong the DMI is. When the DMI predicted only a little amount of rain for one hour, there was actually plenty of rain. But in the late afternoon it cleared up a bit and we were able to open again. Although there were not many birds, it was good to catch anything in the lighthouse after a completely empty day and mourning.

Although the weather was very rough, it was quite busy with people today. Anders finished his work on the database and made it work on the new computer, which we are thankful for. It is at least 4 times faster than the older one. Bent also came along. And Charlotte arrived in the afternoon, tomorrow she will leave with Morten. The downside of staying this long is that you see almost everybody leave. To have a memorable evening, Morten made another delicious lasagna. Morten also made it as one of the first meals here and we really enjoyed back then as well.

Ringing:

Blackbird 0/1

Lesser whitethroat 0/1

Chiffchaff 2/0

Willow warbler 1/0

Pied flycatcher 1/0

Crested tit 0/1

Great tit 0/1

People at the station: Morten, Bent, Anders, Charlotte, Bello and Menno

We woke up to nearly constant rainy conditions and strong wind from south.
Not the best weather for trying to catch birds in nets, so I took a rest and turned on my other side in the bed for two extra hours of sleep.
When I came up at 6 o´clock Menno had tried to open some nets at the Ligthhouse garden and got 2 recaptures.
I then tried some nets in the stations garden, but none of us could make it a standard ringing session, as we constantly had to open and close nets, when showers came in.
Menno gave up at midday with no more birds in the Ligthhouse garden and still stronger wind.
We kept some nets open at the station until dinner time, but the wind, and now a lot of sun after the rain, made the nets visible and the day total of birds in nets was depressing low.
Best bird was a young Treecreeper – first one ringed this season.
Last time the species was ringed here in spring was back in 2019.  
One of the recaptures was an Icterine Warbler ringed nearly a year ago on 10.th of June 2021.

Young Treecreeper    Photo: Morten Jenrich

Anders Z. took another round of updating the database and transferred it to the new computer, so now we just need to catch some birds to enjoy entering data on a faster computer.
Bent took a walk to the beach, where the Little Terns still was on their nests.
They were hard to see with the sand blowing strongly at ground height, but yesterday in the better weather conditions a visitor had photographed the first pullus young this year. The young laying just beside its parent Little Tern.

Anders Z. had a walk around Mosen with nothing new to report from there, and we all took this day as a kind of off day.
Tomorrow also looks hard in the morning with rain and wind, but hopefully a little better options for opening nets during the day.

Ringing totals:

Wren 0/1

Icterine Warbler 0/1

Common Whitethroat 0/1

Blackcap 2/0

Chiffchaff 1/0

Crested Tit 0/1

Treecreeper 1/0

Redpoll 1/1

Total 5/5

People at the station: Bent, Anders Z., Menno, Bello and Morten

While the ringers opened the nets Henrik K, my friend Louise and I kept the beds warm. around 5 I woke up trying to do some seawatch. After a short while I heard some small calling sounds and cheked it out, and found the first rosefinch for the season, but it wasn´t the rosefinch that made the call it was a juvenile redpoll sitting next to it, just as i wanted to call it out on zello Henrik made a message that he found a Red-breasted Flycather in the area opposite of the station. When I came down morten was already there and i saw the tail of it but it was in the area for some time. Menno chaught a beauty of a Crossbill around 5 also!  




Male Crossbill   Photo Morten Jenrich

I continued at the sea, joined by Bjørn, And a Local couple from Varde. We found a 3k Caspian Gull and an Egyptian goose. 

After some breakfast i took a nap and in the meen time Henrik had seen a possible palid swift but despite the amount of details he saw he only had it shortly and didnt get proper documentation sadly. 

Louise tried to hold and release a Common Whitethroat and a Crested Tit that Morten already ringed. Afterwards we went to the city to get some icecream and shop a bit, we wanted to make a bbq as the weather was finally rather comfortable. 
When we came back we had some lunch and then went to the beach. 

In the evening we had the Bbq and a rather big amount of Swifts was flying around the lighthouse. 
After the dinner Louise drow home to Aarhus again. 

Ringing totals:

House Martin 1/0

Redstjart 2/0

Blackbird 1/0

Song Thrush 1/0

Lesser Whitethroat 2/1

Common Whitethroat 5/2

Chiffchaff 1/0

Spotted Flycatcher 1/0

Crested Tit 5/1

Chaffinch 1/0

Greenfinch 1/2

Linnet 1/0

Redpoll 3/0

Common Crossbill 1/0

Total 26/5

People at the station: Bello, Henrik Kristensen, Anders, Svend Aage, Menno, Morten, Louise, Bjørn.

Dofbasen link

During the day we had nearly more people at the birdobservatory than birds.
Anders came to update the database for ringdata, Bent came around and installed a new computer, Louise stayed and walked around with Bello, Henrik K. arrived for a weekend here, while  Menno and I took care og 15 hours with all nets open.
It did gave me a few blodsamples for the WestNileVirus screening, but Menno had the best birds in the hand with a juvenile Stonechat (Sortstrubet Bynkefugl) and a recapture of an old Common Whitethroat (Tornsanger). That bird was ringed by Bent back in 2019 as an already adult male, so now it its at an age of 6k+.
A little funny story is, that the bird also was recaptured exactly one year ago on  4.th of June 2021.

From the walks in the area and the observations at the beach the best birds was 2 Artic Skuas (Almindelig Kjove), one Guillemot (Lomvie), a “white egret” probably a Great White Egret (Sølvhejre) but seen flying at too long distance and a White-tailed Eagle (Havørn).

We hope to have more birds to report tomorrow, as the weather looks promising with calm wind and higher temperatures – and not at least, more eyes to find the birds.

Young Stonechat. Photo Menno den Uijl

Ringing totals:

White Wagtail 1/0

Stonechat 1/0

Icterine Warbler 2/0

Common Whitethroat 0/3

Common Chiffchaff 0/1

Willow Warbker 0/1

Spotted Flycatcher 0/0

Crested Tit 0/1

Coal Tit 2/0

Great tit 0/3

Chaffinch 1/0

Greenfinch 1/0

Linnet 2/0

Redpoll 3/0

Total 13/10

People at the station: Bent, Mikkel, Menno, Louise, Henrik K, Anders Z. and Morten

Today the ringing was quite slow, probably because of the time of year and the northwestern winds. The number of trans Saharan birds was also low, so Morten was not able to sample that many birds today. Maybe the best bird was brought to us by Anders M.. It was in completely fresh plumage, so that indicates that it is born this year here in the bog. It might not have been able to find enough food or had some kind of desease. Some more positive news is from the bluethroats, which also successfully bred in the bog.

At the end of the day Anders M. saw a eagle species at Groningen. He was not sure about the species and put it on Zello. We decided to post for some time and besides some buzzard we saw nothing. At some point I saw an eagle species at a very big distance, because of the movement of the hot air it was impossible to see anything on the bird. If it does not turn around and come to blavand again, we will never know which species it was.

Ringing totals:

White wagtail 2/0

Black redstart 1/0

Blackbird 2/0

Lesser whitethroat 1/0

Common whitethroat 1/0

Common chiffchaff 3/1

Spotted flycatcher 3/0

Crested tit 0/1

Great tit 3/0

Chaffinch 1/0

Greenfinch 4/1

Linnet 4/0

Redpoll 1/1

People at the station: Bent, Mikkel, Morten, Anders M., Anders Z. and Menno

Rain showers in the early morning and too much wind from northwest gave us a day without the standard catching of birds.
I did try to open some of the nets when the rain had stopped around 7, but only half of the nets were enough sheltered from the wind to be open.
After 3 hours I closed them again – not a single bird had been in a net at that time.

At the beach Menno, Bello and I did some observations in the late morning after the rain.
It was very slow with movements of birds over the sea.
Only a few Gannets and Red-throated Divers amongst the Common Scooters, gulls and terns.
Best bird of the session was a roosting Great Skua some way out on the sea.

Then Bent arrived and was so kind to lend his car to Bello and I.
We had to post the WestNileVirus blod samples from Oksbøl before midday, to make sure they arrive at Statens Serum Institut within 24 hours.
When we were in Oksbøl, we made a big shopping of supplies.
Now we have food for the next 5 days to end of “pinse”, and can use our time in the field without thinking of shopping.

Meanwhile Bent made a walk in the surroundings – checking the Little Terns – but didn´t get any other really notable birds on that tour.
I could later confirm that in a walk before dinner.
My best birds around Mosen were a couple of Grey Partridge and a singing Marsh Warbler.
End of a slow day – we will be back tomorrow in better weather conditions!

People at the station: Bent, Bello, Menno and Morten