After the little thunderstorm yesterday evening, the wind really picked up. I stayed up long and just before the last light was gone, I went out in the garden and to the pond, to check, if the wind did not open one of the nets. They were all fine, I had done the closing job well, but just to be safe, I used some pegs to secure them. When my alarm woke me up early in the next morning, I stepped out of the house, but the wind had not slowed down at all. That meant, I could sleep a bit longer before checking the moth trap and after, I used the time to learn for the university exam, I will have at home. I was quite productive but at some point, it was really time for a pause and I happily noticed, that the wind had slowed down a lot, so I went out to open the nets in the late afternoon. Outside, it had 25 degrees, I was a bit surprised and did not like it so much, that the lab seemed to have turned into a sauna. Now it is cooling down a bit and I am writing the blog between the rounds, so far just recaps. But to avoid it getting too late, I will not write more about the ringing, but just add the totals later.

The  ringing:

Greenfinch "Grønirisk" just before beeing released out of the lab

The moths:

Which moths will fly in that weather, I thought on my round through the garden yesterday in the late evening. But whatever, maybe I would show them a sheltered place with the light. Indeed, there were not many species, but one that is not new, but a very nice one, Herminia grisealis "Grå-snudeugle". I will show it to you, I think the colour in combination with the pattern on the wings is really pretty.

Herminia grisealis "Grå-snudeugle"

Not a moth, but Hans had a new garden species today: In the afternoon, he got a visit of Papilo machaon “Svalehale” in his garden!

På stationen: Hanelie Sidhu

The ringing:

This mornings first calendar year Robin "Rødhals"

This time of the year is definitely not the most exiting or challenging. The garden is rather quiet, most birds are occupied with eighter still breeding but mostly hatching their young. But this is the special thing about that time of year: Every day, the freshly hatched bird of a new species can land in the net. Today, it was time again, I took the first first calendar year Robin “Rødhals” out of the net in the first round. When I approached the net, I saw another bird coming close to the net and calling, probably a parent that was worried about its hatchling. I extracted the bird from the net, it got a ring on and measured and soon, it was released, close to the net where I took it out, so it could easily find its parents again. In another net, I found today two Common Whitethroats “Tornsanger” next to each other, a young bird and an adult, probably the mother with its hatchling. Else not so many birds today, six new and 4 recaps, but I had some moth to look at.

The moths:

Atthough, I must say, it was probably the least interesting arrangement of moth species today. Mythimna pallens “Halmugle and Apamea monoglypha “Jordugle” were very abundant while I didn´t have many other species today. But nature is not a request programme and this is just a good thing.

Not in the trap but an interesting finding behind the house: The larvae of Acronicta rumicis "Syreugle"

News of the station:

In the morning, Anne-Marie came shortly to the station to bring some purchases for the house to the station. Since the late morning, I am observing a first calendar year Black Redstart “Husrødstjert” jumping and flying around the house. It especially likes the stairs going up to the attic, but also landed on the window still of the meeting room. Just now, there was a heavy rain shower with thunder and lightning.  While the Black Redstart “Husrødstjert” shook itself, bobbed its tail and flew and jumped around under and on the stairs outside, however, the hare did not seem impressed at all and continued nibbling the grass close to the house. Now the storm is over and they both left the sheltered place. I am sure I will meet them again tomorrow. On the forecast it says very strong wind, so let´s see, if it will be possible to open some nets…

På stationen: Anne-Marie Raith, Hanelie Sidhu

The ringing:

No ringing today because of rain and strong wind.

Continuing with my little analyses of the season:

It is already nearly two weeks ago (see the blog entry of the 23 of June 2024), that I showed diagrams of three long-distance migrants and compared the abundancies of these birds in 2024 to their abundancies last year, 2023, and five years ago, 2019. It turned out, that this spring was a bad season for our long-distance migrants. But what about short/middle-distance migrants?
To find out, I looked at the season totals of Chiffchaff “Gransanger” and Blackcap “Munk”.
The Chiffchaff “Gransanger” seemed to have a pretty good season last year in 2023. This year, its abundance was notably lower, but compared to 2019, this year’s totals were not much lower.

The Blackcap seems to have had a decent year, approximately the same number of birds have been ringed as last year.

However, it is noticeable that a big number of both Chiffchaff “Gransanger” and Blackcap “Munk” arrived earlier this year than in the previous years. Significantly more Chiffchaffs “Gransanger” arrived already in March this year. The same phenomenon is becoming apart in the abundance of Blackcaps “Munk”. While most birds are usually coming in May, they already arrived in April this year.
(To read the previous season analyses blog posts: 15.06., 23.06.)

The moth:

Very few moth species in the trap today, mainly Mythimna pallens “Halmugle” and Apamea monoglypha “Jordugle”. I will show Hoplodrina blanda “Skinnende mus”, I do not get it often.

Hoplodrina blanda “Skinnende mus”

News of the station:

Thanks to Henning Gammel, our lawn is short again. Just after he left, Jasper came with a friend, to show her the station and we had coffee and tea together.

People: Henning Gammel, Jasper Mosman and a friend, Hanelie Sidhu

What an adorable 1K House Sparrow "Gråspurv" from this morning!

The ringing:

It was a rather windy morning, but the rain just started after closing time, so perfect timing although there was not much to catch today… I had one new 1K House Sparrow “Gråspurv” and two recaptures, one of them was one of the young Common Whitethroat “Tornsanger” siblings and the other a Garden Warbler “Havesanger”. Nevertheless, I hardly entered the House after opening the nets, I was moving the poles with nets into the shed, labelling them, so the next person who uses them knows, how long they are, how many pockets, etc. and exchanged the green pole, which was attached to one of the field poles to a bamboo pole, as the green poles are usually used for the garden. Furthermore, I was occupied with the moth, there were not many, but two new…

The moths:

The most abundant moths species in the trap at the moment Mythimna pallens “Halmugle” and Ampamea monoglypha “Jordugle”. There were not so many other species in the trap, but two new ones: Ostrinia nubilalis “Majshalvmøl” and Zeuzera pryna “Plettet træborer” called Leopard moth in English. A fun name due to its appearance, even more fitting would be Snow-Leopard moth in my opinion ;-)

Ostrinia nubilalis “Majshalvmøl”

Zeuzera pryna “Plettet træborer”

På stationen: Hanelie Sidhu

The ringing:

A recapture Dunnock "Jernspurv" from the morning

No rain this morning, that was good news, but it was a bit windy and cold. I caught 12 birds, 7 of them new and five recaptures. At the moment, my highlights are the 1K birds, these were a young House Sparrow “Gråspurv” and a very young Icterine Warbler “Gulbug”, that looked like it was not out of the nest for long. The Icterine Warbler “Gulbug” is a very noisy and vocal species. This little bird did not show this behaviour yet and stayed calm and quiet until it was released. I am sure, it will learn soon. And although this might be annoying for the ringer, it is just a good thing. Birds are wild, it is a pleasure to handle them but the most important thing is, that we just keep them for collecting our data and then let them continue their fascinating and impressive lives. Not long, maybe one and a half moth, two at maximum, and this bird will be on it´s way to Africa, without the care of its parents. We might meet it some more times in the garden until then and after, we hope to have it back here next spring.

The moth:

Windy nights do not make many moth fly, but there is always something nice in the trap or on the wall. Today, Biston betularia “Birkemåler” and Deilephila elpenor “Dueurtsværmer” were the highlights.

Biston betularia “Birkemåler”

News of the station:

Today, two employees of Naturstyerlsen were here and repaired the wooden gate at the entrance of the garden. Hans came shortly to see them and helped me closing the nets.

People: Hans Lind, Hanelie Sidhu

The ringing:

Today I managed to catch one recapture of a Icterine Warbler “Gulbug”, that Hans ringed in 2022. Else, there was a lot of rain in the morning, so I stayed inside.

Gulbug - Icterine Warbler 0/1

The moth:

It was mainly moth species, that I already know very well in the trap and also not many, but Anania hortulata “Nædehalvmøl” was new for me and it’s a really nice moth.

Anania hortulata “Nædehalvmøl”

News of the station:

Later in the morning, Anne-Marie and Vibeke came to the station and cleaned the windows. Thanks to them, working together one inside and one outside of the building, the windows were soon sparkling clean and it seems as the green of the garden is even more coming into the station. This is a nice view. Also Anders and Hans came to the station, because Anders had to extract the data of the spring season which will now be send to the Zoological Museum.

People: Hans Lind, Anders Zuschlag, Anne-Marie Raith, Vibeke, Hanelie Sidhu

The ringing:

This morning looked good for ringing and for opening the pond nets, it was a little cloudy and shallow wind. But there were no birds at the pond in the early morning. Instead, I got a little surprise in the garden in the first round, there was a Thrush Nightingale “Nattergal” in the net. Henrik had one a few days ago, but it is a very nice species in hand. Here in Denmark, the Thrush Nightingale “Nattergal” is more common, and the Common Nightingale “Sydlig Nattergal” is quite rare, but of course, you need to pay attention. Besides appearance, wing formula and wing length, a very good characteristic to differentiate them is looking at P1. Last autumn, I ringed a few birds of both species which came at the same time, and I thought P1 to be really helpful and obvious characteristic. While it is very short in Thrush Nightingales “Nattergal”, it does not even reach the end of the primary coverts, the Common Nightingale has a very big, long P1, which is noticeably longer than the primary coverts. I took a picture to show you the short P1 of this Thrush Nightingale “Nattergal”. Unfortunately, I do not have a comparison picture of a Common Nightingale “Sydlig Nattergal”, but there is a good drawing of that in Svensons Identification Guide to European Passerines, which I can show to you instead.

P1 Thrush Nightingale "Nattergal"

Another nice bird in the garden was a 1k Black Redstart “Husrødstjert”.

1K Husrødstjert

When the morning came to an end, I had zero rounds in the garden and thought, well, game over for today, but now, the pond got alive! The Barn Swallows “Landsvale” had arrived with their young and one of the 1k birds landed in my net.

1K Landsvale

I was already confident but then I saw, that there were two 1k Stillits low in the bottom pocket of the other net. In the closing round, I found another White Wagtail “Hvid Vipstjert” in one of the pond nets, so I decided, just to close in the garden and keep the pond nets open for a bit longer. I exchanged the bottom line of one net, that was broken and went in to look at the moths. Regularly, I went to the pond, but there was nothing new. So I closed. It was a morning with very nice species in the nets!

The moths:

It was a rather good day for moths today, I had days with more, but also with fewer moths. There were also some new species in the trap. I want to show Euthrix potatoria “Græsspinder” because I got male and female in the trap today and I also had the larvae some weeks ago.

Euthrix potatoria (male top, female bottom)

Euthrix potatoria larvae

People: Hanelie Sidhu

My conversation with the "weather frog" (Grøn frø - Pelophylax esculentus) at the pond yesterday evening did not help for today...

The weather forecast for this morning did not look well, already yesterday, when we checked the weather. But you never know, especially here, at the tip so close to the sea, the weather can change very fast and sometimes, the forecast can change within less then 20 minutes. So we had our alarms set. But honestly, we were not to sad, when we saw, that there was way to much rain for ringing, which would not stop for the next five hours. It is out of the season now, but still, we always did the five standard hours of ringing so far.

The rain meant, that we could go back to sleep and this was much appreciated, because yesterday evening, Henrik and I had exchanged the nets at the pond and in the end, it was quite late and there was still the blog to write… At this point, I need to apologise, the last moth in the list, A. lithoxylea was not caught at GFU but in Hans garden, the moth list was also done quite late, but I will update it with the right location now. Besides that, this rainy night, I didn´t have the light on, so no new moth for today.

For Henrik, it was the last day for this time, he left the station in the late morning, but will be back rather soon in August.

The ringing:

So a boring and quite day? No, later in the morning, I opened the nets, the weather looked fine outside and on the radar, but soon, a slight but constant drizzle began. I checked the radar and indeed, it showed this now, so I shut the nets down again, because in a while, it should stop for real and I could open again. After I had waited for a while, it was dry outside, the radar showed no rain at all for this afternoon and I opened again. I just had the nets open for 1.15 h, then, it started drizzling again. This time, the radar showed no rain at all. What a crazy weather! At the moment, it is a very sensitive time, temperatures are fine, so if 2k/ 3k+ birds get a little wet, but are extracted soon, we don´t need to worry, they won´t get cold and will be dry soon. But we are now also getting young birds, that just left the nest. They are much more sensitive and we do not want them to get wet. So I closed again. The 1.15 hours I could do were quite good, I caught 6 birds of six species, of which 3 were new and 3 recaps. The highlight was a White Wagtail “Hvid Vipstjert”, that I caught in one of the new nets at the pond!

People: Henrik Jørgensen, Hans Lind, Hanelie Sidhu

Ringmærkningen:

Vinden var ret hård da nettene skulle op, men alt kunne sættes op. Vinden lagde sig dog meget og det blev en ok dag(i forhold til de andre dage) og 9 fugle blev fanget hvoraf de 8 var nye.

I aften er det sidste dag for denne gang, men jeg ringmærker i morgen tidlig inden jeg tager hjem, men jeg er retur i august.

1K Husrødstjert - Black Redstart

Dagens ringmærkning og kontroller:

Hvid vipstjert/White wagtail 0/1

Husrødstjert/Black redstart 1/0

Gulbug/Icterine warbler 2/0

Gærdesanger/Lesser whitethroat 1/0

Munk/Blackcap 1/0

Gråspurv/House sparrow 1/0

Bogfinke/Chaffinch 1/0

Tornirisk/Linnet 1/0

Total 8/1

The moths:

The windy night did not make many moth fly. I got a new species for the season though, and also Hans in his garden. Pictures below. 

Apamea lithoxylea - Hvidlig stængelugle

Arenostola phragmitidis - Tagrørugle

På stationen: Hanelie Sidhu, Henrik Jørgensen

Ringmærkningen:

Efter gårdagens uvejr havde jeg regnet med at der var kommet en hel del vand, men vores måler viste kun kun at der var faldet 3mm her. Om sommeren har odden ofte den effekt at regnen går i opløsning ude over havet inden det rammer.

Fuglemæssigt var det endnu en tynd dag med kun 6 fugle hvor alle var nye.

Årets første unge af gulbug blev fanget og den kunne knapt flyve, så den blev ringmærket hurtigt og blev sluppet tæt på hvor den blev fanget.

Det var ret tryggende varmt til sidst under ringmærkningen og lige da alt var lukket begyndte det at dryppe lidt, men det var så også det. Det blev dog mere behageligt op ad dagen da vinden tog til.

1K Sangdrossel - Song Thrush

Dagens ringmærkning:

Rødstjert/Redstart 1

Sangdrossel/Song thrush 1

Gulbug /Icterine warbler 4

Total 6

The moths:

Many moth were in the trap today, many of the familiar species that are in the trap every day now, but also new ones and quite some small ones, some of them could be identified, but others were a bit difficult…

One of the micro moths: Argyresthia spinosella

Also Hans found many in the trap in his garden with a little highlight: Aedia funesta “Særgesnerleugle”, which is rare in Denmark and Scandinavia. That and the fact, that it was a bit worn, indicates, that it is a migrant, which is quite exciting and impressive for such a small, delicate creature.  

Aedia funesta “Særgesnerleugle”

På stationen: Jasper Mosmann, Hanelie Sidhu, Henrik Jørgensen