You can summon me with the bat signal

This morning, Cora and I went to open the nets at Kabeltromlen. It was a little windy so we could not open all of the nets. Páll and our guest Lone joined us for the first round. We started out very slow on the first round, until we got to the final net, and there waiting for us was a Firecrest (Rødtoppet Fuglekonge)! We could see his beautiful eyeshadow a mile away. That was especially exciting for Páll, who has been waiting for one all season.

Rødtoppet Fuglekonge

After that, the ringing slowed down again. Luckily, we were able to open a few more nets as the wind dropped, and in one of those we caught two stunning Skægmejse (Bearded reedlings)! I was extremely excited about this because they are the second cutest birds at Kabeltromlen. We have been seeing them fly close to the nets every day without going inside, but today we got lucky!

Skægmejse (Foto Jeppe Madsen)

Skægmejse are breeding in northern Jutland, and are generally not migratory. However, ringing recoveries from this area are half foreign rings, from all over northern Europe. Some populations have localised dispersal, mainly of young birds. As they typically disperse to other breeding areas, these foreign birds would be unknown to us without ringing data! At this time of year, we cannot determine the age of the skægmejse we trap because both adults and first-year birds undergo a complete moult. But, hopefully they can become retrapped so we can find out more about their movements!

Meanwhile, Mio, Christina, and Louis were at the migration count at World’s End III with Knud. They were enjoying watching the migrating kittiwakes, almost 200 today! Among them were also 16 little gulls (Dværgmåge) and one migrating Spliterne (Sandwich Tern). Splitterne breed up here in Europe and migrate south to spend winters all along the west coat of Africa. They tend to arrive to their wintering grounds in September, so this bird is running a little late. The observers were also happy today to see a pod of Orcas (Spækhugger)!

In the afternoon, I went to the bakery to eat cake while I worked on statistics, and Mio and Cora went out to (unsuccessfully) search for the Richard’s Pipit (Storpiber). Then in the evening, they went night catching again and brought us back a very cute Enkeltbekkasin (Jack Snipe)! We have also had our owl nets open but no success yet!

Enkeltbekkasin-- this individual has a particularly short bill

Ringing KAB

Rødtoppet Fuglekonge - 1

Skægmejse - 2

Vindrossel - 1

Musvit - 1

Blåmejse - 5

Rødhals - 2

Lille gråsisken - 1

Dompap - 3

Bogfinke - 1

Munk - 2

Total : 20

Highlights from World's End III

Ride - 196

Havlit - 4

Dværgmåge - 17

Splitterne - 1

Link to today’s observations in the Dofbasen from observers in the area.

People: Mio Brix, Cora Köberle, Louis-Marie Gourmelon, Simon S. Christiansen, Sarah Partridge, Christina Liu, Páll Vang Kjærbo, Knud Pedersen, Lars og Lone