Gedser continues to be beset by persistent north westerly(ish) winds of between 30 and 40 km/hr, which is distinctly sub-optimal for both the migrating birds and for us. Luckily the garden has some nice sheltered corners so we could still get about half of the nets up and ready for 6.15am. It was a pretty slow day but better than expected, and we ringed 40 birds and re-captured another 9 by the time we closed at 1pm. Amongst those were 12 species – nothing unusual but a very nice selection (details below).

After ringing we did a bit of gardening – some trees got a relatively severe haircut for threatening to encroach on our nets. Ramón in particular really enjoyed using the hedge trimmer (maybe a bit too much).

Sadly Adam and Nora left this afternoon but they briefly overlapped with Henrik who will be here for the next few weeks. I’m looking forward to learning from his vast experience!

2k+ male great tit

Birds ringed and (recaptured):
Gærdesmutte 1 (1)
Jernspurv 5
Rødhals 2 (1)
Rødstjert 2
Tornsanger 1
Havesanger 1 (1)
Munk 1 (1)
Gransanger 15 (3)
Løvsanger 2
Skovspurv 5
Solsort (1)
Musvit (1)
Total: 40 (9)

All in all it was a very enjoyable day, and I hope yours was too.

All the best!
Gail

Selvom en rimelig portion af nettene blev åbnet rettidigt kl. 06:15, så blev det til en søvnig søndag i dag. Fire nye fugle – en rødhals, en gærdesanger og to gransangere – blev ringmærket imens vi gradvist lukkede nettene igen i løbet af morgenen. Lidt af en kontrast til de over 200 fugle, som vi fik i går. Udsigten til i morgen er ikke særlig god men lidt bedre, så vi håber på det bedste. Her er et billede fra en bedre dag af en gærdesmutte, på færøsk "músabróðir" (musebror):

Resten af dagen blev rimelig afslappet og husholdningsfokuseret. Gåture og lure, rengøring og madlavning. og Ramón og Gail begav sig ud i deres første eventyr med rugbrødbagning! Bagepapiret kunne desværre ikke fjernes fra brødet, hvilket gav det en… interessant tekstur. De var ret misfornøjede med værket, men det kunne da godt spises!

De bedste fuglehilsner

Jón

Flot vejr over Fuglestationen i løbet af lørdagen, hvor vi holdte nettene åbne næsten 12 timer.
Godt og vel et par hundrede fugle i nettene, og en del spændende arter. Efter et par omgange af lige-ved-og-næsten, sad spurvehøg pludseligt i nettet.

        
       Stor glad friskmærket hunhøg (tidligere på efteråret havde vi også en hanhøg i Gedser)

Særlig den tidlige morgen var travl, men vi fik tid til at knipse et par af de mere fotogene gæster i nettene:  
   
                 1k Blåmejse                                                         1k Skovpiber 

I eftermiddags kom Jón tilbage, og er på mærkerne fra i morgen søndag - sammen med Ramón, Gale og undertegnede.

Lille PS:
Fuglekikkere snakker altid meget om bimorphism hos kønnene af spurvehøg og duehøg, så her linker jeg lige til et godt foto som viser størrelsesforholdene dem iblandt:

han,hun + han,hun

Today is a day where not much was happening in the garden, so it is difficult to write something about the birds that we caught. We had 31 birds (of which 6 recaptures) and 13 species. So we had some diversity. 

The morning started with a White-tailed Eagle flying over the house. Later in the day a Sparrohawk was flying into the net, just in front of the house. IIn about 2 seconds I was outside, but bird was already gone and that happened one time more. That is the life of a birdcatcher.

In the afternoon we had a little special snack. In the morning I found some mushrooms in the garden, in the afternoon fried them and served them with some toast. That is also the life of a birdcatcher. We are not complaining but we hope that the birds start to fly southwards so that we get some more work to do, 31 birds with four people is not much.

Only one picture today: a beautiful Jernspurv:

With kind regards

Robert

Today to much wind and no new influx during the night and early morning. At Gedser Odde they had a lot of sparrowhawks and other raptors and it resulted in one that was flying in one of the special sparrowhawks nets that we have at the station. We only caught 24 birds, but nevertheless we had 15 different species. In the picture gallery of today you can find the picture of a first year male Spurvehøg, a picture of two "Musviter" one before moulting and one after moulting (they are both born this year) and a picture of a Kærsanger.

Despite the low number of birds Hans could show the visitors of the "Skattestyrelsen" a Spurvehøg and a Skovpiber. I think they were happy with the visit.

Picture gallery:

Birds caught today (new ones and recaptures):

With kind regards 

Robert

We opened the nets before 6.15 and could do a standard day (5 hours catching). There was a bit much wind but in the morning the sky was blue. So not so bad at all. We caught in total 60 birds 36 new ones and 24 recaptures (see table). 

This time a few small pictures (some are not off today) and no name is given. Hope you like to find out which species they are.

The apple desert was very good even without the mint.

With kind regards

Robert

Yesterday before we were going to bed we thought it would not be possible to catch bird because the forcast was was rain rain and more rain the whole day. But when I woke up at 5 the rain radar showed that we had a window with no rain for almost an hour. So we opened the nets and caught bird for about two and a half hours. In total we had 35 birds (see Table). This time no pictures, but i will try to get a few nice ones tomorrow. So we did some shopping, some other personal things. I, for instance, was putting my own ringed birds, caught at home or in Gjerrild,  into the database of the museum. There was time for yoga. Time for an additional nap. Time for learning al the features of the moulting strategies of the bird species. time for making a portuguese apple desert (we still have to find out how it taste, because we could not buy mint tea or mint in Gedser and I had to use oil instead of butter because some of us are vegans). So you see we were busy. Benny entertained a group even with having no birds to show (at ten and later it was raining). And as always he brought fresh bread, a very much appreciated habit of him.

I asked Jón to introduce himself:

Jeg hedder Jón Aldará, kommer fra Færøerne og er uddannet biolog fra Københavns Universitet. Jeg har arbejdet med lidt af hvert, men de seneste år har fokus især været på havfugleøkologi. Som ansat på Færøernes Naturhistoriske Museum tager jeg mig blandt andet af at administrere den færøske ringmærkergruppe, monitere havfugle, organisere og katalogisere vores hav- og landdyresamlinger, formidle museets aktiviteter og lave mange diverse små og store opgaver i forbindelse med naturformidling.

Desuden er jeg meget aktiv musiker, og spiller meget rundt omkring i Europa med mit hovedband, Hamferð. Genren er meget sammensat, men har hovedsagelig sin base i metal af den hårde slags!

I løbet af min tid på Gedser var jeg også i USA og spillede koncert for allerførste. Dette var med mit finske band, Barren Earth, hvor jeg er den eneste ikke-finne.

Min tid på Gedser Fuglestation har været fantastisk indtil videre, selvom vejret har forhindret ringmærkningsarbejdet en hel del. Forhåbentlig får vi bedre vejr de kommende dage. Hvem ved, måske får noget usædvanligt i nettet. Vi fik fat i en dværgfalk på min første dag hér, så lad os håbe at heldet vender tilbage!

Birds caught and recatures today:

With kind regards, we are now going to try the vegan apple desert from Portugal (maybe I will tell you how it tasted tomorrow). 

Ciao Robert

The day started very good, but we had to close the nets at eight o`clock. Could open it later in the morning for an additional hour, but only a few nets. In total we caught 127 new birds and had 6 recaptures. The weather forecast for the day and the next day is only rain. So tomorrow we could probably sleep in and come only late out of bed. The highlicht of the day were probably the 5 Grå Fluesnapper that we caught.

In the picture gallery of this day you will find two close ups: one of a male Rødstjert and one of a Grå Fluesnapper and one picture of Gail in action.

The results of the day:

With kind regards  Robert

Change of weather and there were the birds. Whole week no bird calls when opening the nets in the dark, but now they were everywhere. Crazy first round, so we decided to call Hans to help getting the birds out and also Gert has helped us. First three hours was hard work, but that is where we come for. We had a Nattergal and a Rødrygget Tornskad. Probably a day record for the Rødstjert (41) and also very many Havesanger (54). 

In total we caught 323 birds (17 species) of which only 5 were recaptures:

In the picture gallery you find an impression of the first round and the other picture is a kind of quiz, which one is which. Hope you see the differences.

I do not know who made the bird bags but today we used them almost all. Thanks for the new ones.

I will go early to bed today, I am tired.

With kind regards

Robert

Today was again very quiet. We had 28 birds, but more than half of them were recaptures. We had a lot of visitors, a family of three and a larger group of about 25 people. Luckely we had some birds to show and to explain what we are doing here. 

The day started with some wind but quickly the wind became less. It looks like we get a weather chance and that is normally resulting in an influx of new birds. Lets hope that will be the case. Claus-Jannic and Nina are also here, so there are hands enough to handle some more birds.

In the afternoon we had time to do some other things and we made some nice pictures. You will find a few of them below. This time no birds but a frog and a duehale.

Catches and recaptures of today:

With kind regards

Robert