A fast bird caught, but slow morning

Ringing:

Xenia and I started the day together and were hopeful for some birds, as yesterday turned out to be a pretty decent ringing session, but unfortunately this turned out to be my slowest ringing morning since I arrived here in Blåvand. We only caught 5 birds in total during the 5 hours of the standard ringing period, but the first one was particularly special! 

A first for the season and a first for me to ring, a gorgeous male Barn Swallow (Landsvale) was found in the nets on the first round! 

Male Barn Swallow 

These birds have very short and small legs, with grippy feet and claws as their main lifestyle is being in the air, only coming down to nest and care for their young. They are not very agile on land, due to their proportionally very small legs and long wings and tail. That made the handling interesting and very different from other passerine birds, as we use the legs to secure birds in safe positions while handling a lot.

Their tail with the streamer outer feathers are particularly beautiful, and the body plumage is a fantastic metallic blue color. What a treat!!

Barn Swallow tail

Barn Swallow wing

The rest of the morning was super slow but we still had a couple of Icterine Warblers (Gulbug), which as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs are always a delight to have around.

Another cute visitor around the nets was this Slow Worm (Anguis fragilis) (Stålorm), very beautiful up close.

Slow Worm 

This evening my dear boyfriend Alvin is coming to the station from Skagen Fuglestation for around a week’s time and will be ringing with me for the duration of his stay. I am looking forward to it! One of his wishes is to catch a Wood Pigeon (Ringdue), which I really hope will happen! We are at the best location for it to happen after all :)