Rainbow sunrise

Hanlie and I were off to Kabeltrommeln this morning for ringing, though the wind meant we kept exposed nets shut today. There was a brief shower as we finished opening nets, which produced an incredible rainbow with about the highest arc possible this time of year since it happened almost exactly at sunrise time.

Rainbow sunrise over the lighthouse.

Though we didn’t get a high volume of birds today, as usual we had some brilliant specimens, including juveniles of several species - Lesser Redpoll (Lille Gråsisken), a Blue Tit (Blåmejse), and a Great Spotted woodpecker (Stor Flagspætte), which Erik turned up at the ringing just in time to see. You can find more pictures of our woodpecker this morning on our Instagram and Facebook. We also had some Crossbills (Lille Korsnæb) flying south over us as we were ringing, as well as more Lesser Redpoll (Lille Gråsisken) flying around.

Lesser Redpoll (Lille Gråsisken)

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Stor Flagspætte)

Meanwhile Emma started on the migration count this morning, seeing plenty of the usuals for this time of year, even having around 50 Common Tern (Fjordterne) resting on the beach with a few Kittiwake (Ride) and an Arctic Tern (Havterne) mixed in, as well as a resting Lapwing (Vibe), and some Golden Plover (Hjejle).  Erik and Knud joined her for some observing, meaning she could leave early to join us for the last hours of ringing. They spotted and photographed a ringed 1st calendar year Meditteranean Gull (Sorthovedet Måge)!

Meditteranean Gull (Sorthovedet Måge) colour-ringed 1st calendar year individual - Photo by Erik

This afternoon, along with standard data entry of our morning work, we have been doing some quality assurance on the backlog of ringing data, making sure there are no errors in our reporting!

Ringing totals:

Gransanger 5
Tornsanger 6
Blåmejse 1
Gærdesanger 1
Kærsanger 1
Lille Gråsisken 1
Stor Flagspætte 1
Total 16

Highlights:
Great Spotted Woodpecker (Sotr Fagspætte)
Mediterranean Gull (Sorthovedet Måge)

Link to todays observations in DOFbasen from Observers in the area.

At the station: Emma Fabre, Hanelie Sidhu, Rosemary Fricke, Knud Pedersen, Erik Christophersen.