Short visitor

Hello all, I am here again for a short visit. I arrived late last night and Simon kindly picked me up from the station – to tell me that I was to open the nets today. Which, of course, I gladly did – who needs sleep after all. Mind you, last time I was here in July, we were leaving at 3:30 or so to open the nets, today it was 5:15 so that feels like the Sunday it was.

So we opened the nets and since I wasn’t here for a couple of months I had no idea what to expect but I was hoping to catch a goldcrest (fuglekonge) because I only ever ringed one once in my life. It took less than two hours before I got my first of the day – which was later followed by two more. Such amazing and really pretty birds they are! With a weight of 5,5 grams, migrating several thousand kilometers from Sweden to the Mediterranean to winter there.

But we had other birds as well, of course, not only tiny goldcrests. We also had some very fat blackcaps (munk), who are clearly ready for a long trip – although they do not migrate any further than the goldcrest, they do so with a weight of 22 grams or more (after putting on fat – lean weight is around 17 grams). Next to that we also had quite a few common redstarts (rødstjert), mostly juvenile but also one very pretty adult male (not that the females are not pretty). And finally we also had three of a flock of siskins (grønsisken).

Rather special birds of today also were a sedge warbler (sivsanger) and a pied flycatcher (broget fluesnapper).

All in all, the ringing at Kabeltromlen was very good with a stunning 64 birds ringed today and very diverse today and lots of fun. I also got to know Hanelie and Solenn and we practiced our skulling skills which will come in handy for each of us in the future.

In the meantime, Frank and Diana were out observing at World’s End 3, while Max slept in and left at 10 for his long journey back to California where his semester at university will start in a week. Maybe we will see him again next year.

Also today our guests of this week left - maybe we will see them again next year as well. And late at night, our new guests for the next week will arrive.

Frank and Diana also had a good morning at the observations – Diana more so than Frank, who was very unhappy that he just missed the white-billed diver that was flying over while he was packing up his scope. Diana, on the other hand, saw her first ever black guillemot which made her day. There was also a black-throated diver and a red-throated pipit, next to a red-footed flacon and the usual birds.

In the afternoon, Simon went with the rest of the volunteers to fix the fence around the radio receiver still hoping to get updates from birds passing with a radio tag on.

At the same time, I went to the camp ground to meet my school class, which is the real reason that I am here (contrary to what you might think, this is not a fun visit, but I am actually here for work). 20 of my 12^th and 13^th grade students arrived this afternoon to spend the next 4 days in the area helping with bird work and doing some more biological field work on their own. My goal is, of course, to get them excited about birds an biological field work in general, and for them the goal is to get a good preparation for their final exam where one topic is ecology. I hope that some of them will write the blog in the days to come so you can read first hand what they are experiencing.

And while the best preparation for a tough week to come might be sleep for some, we chose to get prepared by spending a night catching birds, so again tonight we will try to catch more storm petrels (or whichever petrels really). We will report tomorrow how it went.

So far so good, it is my first and will probably be my last blog for this very short visit but I promise I will be back in the winter because I really want to see (and ideally ring) a snow bunting…

Birds ringed at Kabeltromlen:

Solsort (Blackbird) 1

Jernspurv (Dunnock) 3

Rødstjert (Common redstart) 6

Rødhals (Robin) 2

Broget Fluesnapper (Pied Flycatcher) 1

Rørsanger (Reed Warbler) 4

Sivsanger (Sedge Warbler) 1

Løvsanger (Willow Warbler) 2

Gransanger (Chiffchaff) 6

Fuglekonge (Goldcrest) 3

Munk (Blackcap) 14

Havesanger (Garden Warbler) 2

Tornsanger (Common Whitethroat) 5

Gærdesanger (Lesser Whitethroat) 2

Blåmejse (Blue tit) 6

Musvit (Great Tit) 1

Grønsisken (Siskin) 3

Rørspurv (Reed Bunting) 2

Total: 64!

 

People: Solenn Boucher, Max Laubstein, Simon Christiansen, Frank Osterberg, Hanelie Sidhu, Diana Sciandra and Martina Hillbrand

 

Todays Observations from the area on DOFBasen