Slow and steady won the race

Antallet af trækkende vadere synes at være aftaget betydeligt, og det er vel også forventeligt her hvor september banker på døren. Vi (Henrik Brandt og jeg) havde i alt omkring 250 vadere med bl.a. 55 strandskader, 50 sandløbere, 42 islandske ryler, 31 stenvendere, 27 almindelige ryler og 21 store præstekraver. Sandløbere er så godt som ved at være i vinterdragt, så de ser noget lysere ud nu end de andre ryler. Langt størstedelen af rylerne synes desuden nu at være ungfugle med kun enkelte adulte ind i mellem. Både i går og i dag havde vi 5 rødstrubede lommer, så de er efterhånden også ved at komme. Der kom, mens vi var der, ikke en eneste kjove forbi Hukket i dag.

Vinden var i sydvest og omkring 8 m/s, men den var ikke så forstyrrende for os alligevel, så vi sad det sædvanlige sted ved skuret. Vinden var nok medvirkende til at der næsten ikke kom nogen spurvefugle trækkende, kun enkelte skovpibere, landsvaler og 1 jernspurv og hvid vipstjert blev det til.

En tur i mosen om eftermiddagen gav sortstrubede bynkefugle, rødrygget tornskade, skovpiber, tornsanger og tornirisker; desværre ingen høgesanger. Så var den dag gået.

Vinden skulle i morgen komme fra syd og være aftaget en anelse og tillige føre en del varme herop. Vi får se om dette bringer nogle spændende fugle herop og hvordan fuglene ellers trækker.

Lisa Flam:

Today has been the slowest day I’ve had since I’ve been ringer in charge here in Blåvand. Even though the lack of birds I enjoyed the company of Xenia Maria Salomonsen that joined me for the day, and hopefully many more days this season.

We had a calm day with only 9 new ringed birds+ 7 recaptures from 9 species. The star of the day is definitely still the Garden Warbler (havesanger) (2+6 recap), also Flycatchers (fluesnapper) (Pied (broget) and Spotted (grå)), Yellowhammer (gulspurv), a 1^st year Tree Sparrow (skovspurv) that is definitely moulting its feathers (see photos below) etc.

1st year Tree Sparrow. Photo: Lisa Flam

Tree Sparrow. Good example for a moulting tail- you can see the new feathers growing, the ones that have been moulted already and the old ones not moulted yet- all together. Photo: Lisa Flam 

The wind was pretty strong as well as the sun (and yet not too hot), so probably the birds could see the net, also due to the fact we had so many recaptures from the last days I am assuming the birds haven't been migrating much. Also, almost all birds didn’t have much fat, seems like they will be spending another day or two here.

One of our recaptures was a Garden Warbler I have ringed on the 26.8.19. It had no fat and weighed 15,6 g, today it had 5 fat (on a scale from 0-9) and weighed 20,4 g, that means it gained 5 g! Think of it this way, if you weigh 60 kg you would have gained 15 kg at the same amount of time, and yet for us it is impossible to do that in so little time.


Xenia and a Garden Warbler.  Photo: Lisa Flam 

Working with a high-level trainee like Xenia gave me the opportunity to use some of my knowledge, and also get some of hers. I feel like working with different ringers is always useful, you can always learn something new even after many years of ringing (in my case 5 years, and yet ...).

I will say this: over the last 2 weeks I have worked with 3 amazing women, Manon, Iben and Xenia. I don’t know how many of you know, but most bird watchers and ringers in general are men and it is nice seeing strong amazing women out there doing their thing, and I really hope to see more women around. (Men are welcome as well! Don’t get me wrong!)


And... This is me, Lisa, in the middle of ringing a Pied Flycatcher. Photo: Xenia M. Salomonsen 

Hopefully going to have tomorrow more birds than today, or at least a new interesting species (also common birds in Denmark that are rare in Israel would count as interesting for me, so let's all hope for even that!).