The ringing

Today it was mostly recaptures in the ringing and not many birds, just nine in total. The weather forecast looked a bit unstable but the rain of the night had stopped just before net opening time and during the five standard hours, there was just a very short shower that hid the ringing garden so I just walked the round while it rained and it stopped very soon, as I had already seen on the radar. I was not bored this morning though, as I had a very interested visitor who joined me on the rounds today. One the two friends of my mother, who are spending some holiday days at Denmark with her and visiting me, Christian from Munich, wanted to see the ringing. Luckily, there were some birds I could show to him and the rest of the time, I explained about the migration behaviour of long-distance and short distance migrants as well as of birds was the Blackbird “Solsort”, that we can actually see all year round, but they also do migrate shorter distances. The Blackbird, “Solsort”, that you fed in your garden in winter might be a bit further noth now in spring, Maybe just in northern Denmark or also in Sweden or Norway, while some Blackbirds “Solsort” that were wintering in Germany are here. There were also some moths in the traps that kept me busy.

Tornirisk "Linnet"

The moths

There were 17 different moth species in the two light traps I am catching with now. Some of them I recognized but there were also some new. My favourite species of today was Noctua pronuba “Stor Smutugle”. The English name is Large Yellow Underwing. This is a quite good name as what I think is especially pretty on them is their orange (not yellow though, but there might be variation) underwing, that you see when releasing the moth by the time it flies away. It should be a very common species though, so there will probably be more the next days. Another new moth was Phragmataecia castaneae ”Rørborer”, which is called Reed Leopard in English, a quiet funny name. I think for a rainy night as toady this is an okay amount of moth species caught, and at Bøtø, I saw many moths flying and could identify two more species.

Noctua pronuba

Phragmataecia castaneae

Birds in the area

After all the morning work was done, Gert and I showed Bøtø to my mother and her friends. The topic of the trip was mainly chicks, we saw Crane “Trane” with their chicks, Avocets “Klyde” and their chicks and there are also young Oystercatchers “Strandskade” and White-tailed Eagles “Havørn” to admire.

Crane "Trane" with chick

News of the station

Jens arrived this evening, he will be here for ringing for a bit more than a week. There is the Overshooter event this weekend, so we host a few birders over the weekend, who are hoping to see some good birds the nest days. Jasper also got family visit and they will explore Denmark a bit the next days, but he will be back on Monday.

People: Jens Friies-Walsted, Jasper Mosman, Gert Jeppesen, Mads and Tina Elley, Hanelie Sidhu and Karin