Snow Buntings (Snespurv) are smarter than ringers

It was too windy to ring at Kabeltromlen today, so Amelie, Chris, and Aurora decided to try to catch Snow Buntings (Snespurv) at the beach in Grenen.

There was a nice flock of Snow Buntings on the beach that was merrily going about its business, but never seemed to want to go too close to the nets. As the morning wore on, more tourists came onto the beach and began to investigate the nets, which didn’t help matters. Around noon, the ringers tried to “herd” the Snow Buntings into the net from several sides, and for a moment it looked like the birds were going to fly straight into the mesh – but when the Buntings were 20 meters away, they suddenly rose higher up in the air and flew over the nets. Well, it was a sunny and windy day today, and the nets were quite visible. So, Snow Buntings: 1, Ringers: 0.

Next time, we will go out earlier when there are fewer tourists around. The early ringer catches the bird! Hopefully, it will be less windy then and somewhat overcast skies wouldn’t hurt, either.

I went to World’s End 3 this morning for migration counting. I joined Martin and Knud a little later than usual because I had a translation job to finish. Before I arrived, Martin and Knud saw two Little Auks (Søkonge) and a Pomerine Skua (Mellemkjove) – too bad I missed them! But we had nice numbers all morning, with over 600 Northern Gannets (Sule) and more than 5,500 Razorbills (Alk).

Last night, Chris and Aurora caught a juvenile Great Black-backed Gull (Svartbag) and an adult male Common Scoter (Sortand) – very exciting! Aurora has some pretty mean-looking bruises on her hands and arms because the Great Black-backed Gull was quite feisty. But she has a lot of experience ringing seabirds (including gulls), so she did not shy away from the job.

We are going night catching again this evening – this time, we are targeting a more challenging group of birds: owls! Stay tuned for updates, we will certainly let you know if we catch anything. Perhaps a Short-eared Owl (Mosehornugle)?

No Ringmærkning data for today.

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

People: Aurora Gonzalo-Tarodo, Chris Ketola, Martin Grienenberger, Knud Pederson, Amelie Zeller, Simon S. Christiansen, Christina Stinn, Jørgen + Karin