Sperber (Accipiter nisus) Freilassung at the Station!

Observationer
Hello dear blog and loyal readers! Today was still warm, still slightly windy with wind from southeast. As always i had high hopes for the morningsibservation. I was specifically looking out for migrating loons and dabbing ducks, as they have both been somewhat decent the last couple of days. So at six AM i set out for my daily walk into the rosehipbush. The first half an hour was decent with two skuas, a light going south and a dark resting for a little while. I did howver already notice that the tide was quite high, and thus not a lot of resting gulls or waders. The common- and sandwich terns was however quite busy this morning, most going north or forraging in the area. Some gannets were also starting to show up for their favorite dinnerplace a couple hundred meters from the shore. By the time i went home roughly 90 gannets where eating fish or resting quite close to where i was seated. I could see them without telescope or binoculars, and had a fantastic view seen through my scope. I do love the diversity of gannets in the different stages of age and moulting. As always a nice sight!:)
The loons and ducks did however disappoint. Besides my usual scoters i only had a single teal duck and three red throated loons! Not a lot at all. The waders however... were also lacking.In total 18 oystercatchers (!), 4 turnstones, 6 red knots, 21 sanderlings and 3 red shanks. Not a very exciting morning if i a being completely honest. The view however was wonderful, and if birds would have shown up i would have had them in the most wonderful morning light.

Ringmærkning

With the end of August also came what I believe to be one of the last nice summer days! With nice warm weather we also had a nice variety in bird species! The morning started with a nice mix of Robins, Bullfinches and Chaffinches. Later on we got a nice streak of Yellowhammers and Redstarts!

-Yellowhammer in hand

Later we got a cute pair of Coal Tits and a few Willow Warblers, as well as one young Black Bird and beautiful Black Caps!

At around 9:30am Sverre joined Lise and I for  a few net checks and got to ring his first bird, a wounderful first year Bullfinch!

-Sverre´s first ringed bird, a young Bullfinch

Then, as we were packing up and going on our final net check round, a nice little surprise, a Sparrow Hawk looking for her morning snack in the form of a traumatised Redstart!

On our way back to the observatory I let a few present visiters know that we would be releasing the sparrow hawk fairly soon. Turns out word got around quickly and when we came back to the parking lot of the station with the ringed bird in hand, we had a nice sized group of motivated people and lots of exited children waiting for the release! This made a great chance for a little demonstration and biodiversite awareness talk from my part. Since I speak german I was able to also share some fun facts about this incredible bird with the youngest of our spectators, who seemed to quite enjoy a close look at the beautiful hawk!

-Lua Koplin

 People at Station: Lua Koplin, Lise Mastrup and Sverre Dahl Porsgaard