The sleeping volunteers

Observations:

Today, forecasted conditions didn't allow to carry out the standard migration count protocol, so the observer team decided to redistribute the 3h effort along the day. We achieved this by counting for 1h in the morning just after the front passed and 2h in the afternoon.

Wader movement was visible, though slow. A few hundreds of the most common species, and no real highlights. A few passerine migrants and raptors, were seen, but the conditions weren't good for them either.

Hope tomorrow improves!

Ringing:

Oof. Yesterday we looked at todays weather in the evening and concluded that the morning rain wouldn't make it possible to complete standardised ringing. We set the alarms to 8am and hoped that we could sleep until then. Waking up we promptly opened the nets hoping to catch the birds gettin' movin' after the rain, but numbers didn't exactly impress so we closed all nets at 1pm. The conclusion is that we'll need a prince charming (a rare vagrant maybe?) soon to awake us from our slumber.

We did get a Dutch family who came to visit for a ringing tour after getting their blood flowing by being present for the barred warbler (Curruca nisoria) yesterday. Luckily we were able to show off a captured Common Chiffchaff (Phylloscupus collybita) and a Lesser Whitethroat (Curruca curruca). Ida got to unfold some of her dutch and educational capabilities, and I like to think that even though we didn't gather that much data today, we still furthered the birds' cause by spurring the interest of possible future birders :).

Todays ringing numbers:

At the station: David, Miguel, Nico, Lois, Alba, Johan, Ida