Sidste dag for Menno her i Blåvand efter at han har været her siden 1. marts.
Inden han tog af sted nåede han at tage en sidste morgenobs indtil en kraftig regnbyge satte en stopper for det. Af spændende observationer til morgen i den kraftige nordvestenvind var en Sortterne og 500 Sildemåger.
Under sit ophold har han gennemset vores ringmærkningsmateriale for at kigge på forandringer i fuglenes ankomsttider, og det har udmøntet sig i en artikel "The change of the phenology of spring migrants at Blåvand".
Menno skal have en stor tak for indsatsen på Blåvand Fuglestation.
Efter at have kørt Menno til stationen i Esbjerg tjekkede jeg lige Ho Bugt på  tilbagevejen, og her er ved at komme godt med fugle. Bl.a. sås 44 Skestorke, 1850 Gravænder, 850 Klyder og 520 Rødben.

Bent

Today it was my last full day here. Tomorrow I will travel back to the Netherlands. If everything goes as planned I am planning to come back here autumn '23. I really look forward to this! This is because I had plenty of good memories and met some very nice people. Next to that, we caught some very nice species! 

On my last day, Bent and Sven came and brought some cake. When I am in the Netherlands I will definetily miss the fine pastry of Denmark! We did some cleaning and organizing. 

During the seawatch I had a very closeby Manx shearwater. This is probably a breeding bird feeding here because it was pushed by the western winds. Next to that, there was not that much going on.

People at the station: Menno, Bent and Sven auge

On this sunny, but windy day the migration was not that good with northwestern winds. There were only a handfull of waders, some comorants and ducks kept me a bit busy. 

After the count I walked to the little tern colony and I could see three fledged young litte terns and one big young. That is fantastic news and hopefully the fence will be there the coming years as well. Bent really wanted to see it as well for himself and could discover two more fledged little terns. Already great news if you consider that most young still need to fledge. I am curious how many terns will fledge from the colony inside the fence. The ringed plovers also bred succesfully and some young ones are wondering around now as well. Unfortunately, I leave before the terns go back to Africa but it was really worth the effort of putting and mantaining the fence up.

Tomorrow there are some possibilities for me to ring some birds after the seawatch. '

People at the station: Bent and Menno

Today was the first day where I did the count again. I did them in the beginning of the season as well, but now it was more fun since the temprature and plumages were better compared to March. Besides I took the opportunity to set out the moth trap. There were some nice moths in there. I got 8 species that I have not seen before. There were not many birds migrating, so it was nice to get a bit more used to counting again. After the count I went looking for the ring ouzel, but it seems that it is gone. It was also good to see that the young terns grew up a lot since last time I saw them. Unfortunately, the weather was to bad to open some nets. Saterday and sunday look more promising for ringing. In between rounds, I can organise and clean somewhat. This way, the autumn crew can start clean. 

People at the station: Menno

On the last day we reached 2000 new ringed birds. Besides that, there were not that many birds unfortunately. The coming days I will be busy with the seawatch and packing my stuff. Maybe I will do some ringing in between, but looking at the weather I do not think that there will be that many opertunities....

Ringing:

Meadow pipit 1/0

Icterine warbler 1/0

Chiffchaff 3/0

Willow warbler 2/2

Great tit 1/0

Chaffinch 1/0

Lesser redpoll 1/0

Bullfinch 1/0

Yellowhammer 1/0

People at the station: Bent and Menno

Today it was very hot, with almost no cloud cover so I was very keen on getting sunscreen on to prevent as much sunburn. Because of the wind and the sun, there were not many birds around. Because yesterday was quite good, it felt slower than usual.

The best news of the day was that we got reply of the Ring ouzel that was seen by the birders from Norway. It has been ringed and tagged on Tenerive. A wonderful resighting! Since the tag is not working, I will try the coming days to relocate it and maybe catch it to retrieve the tag.

Today the person to do activities out of the neighboring museum got installed. She will organize some activities like fishing in the sea and guided tours.

We are now just two birds short of the 2000 birds this year.

Sydøstenvinden bragte efter årstiden en del vadere til Hukket. Det blev til 11 arter hvoraf 79 Storspover, 25 Hvidklirer, 2 Brushaner og 1 Sortklire. Og til aften landede en Hvidbrystet Præstekrave kortvarigt på Hukket inden den trak videre.
Omkring fyret vrimlede det med mursejlere.
Og så er vores udhegning en succes. De 2 første flyvefærdige Dværgterneunger og 3 store unger sås udover. Der er uden tvivl flere unger som er vanskelige at se.
Og så løber der 8 store præstekraveunger rundt derinde, og de bliver flyvefærdige i næste uge.
Det er svært at få hænderne ned.

Ringing

Meadow pipit 1/0

Song thrush 1/0

Icterine warbler 1/0

Lesser whitethroat 0/3

Chiffchaff 1/2

Willow warbler 1/0

Great tit 1/2

Tree sparrow 2/0

Chaffinch 2/0

Linnet 2/0

Redpoll 2/0

Totals 15/7

People at the station: Bent, Sven, Sven aage, two people from the museum and Menno

After a day of no ringing, it was possible to ring again. You can really see that summer is coming to an end with a high percentage of juvenile birds. It was quite a good day again with over 15 birds. Another crossbill made an appearance, and has to be the bird of the day. 0ojjjkUnfortunately, the military decided to practice more often now. This makes the checking of the tern colony a bit harder. Today Bent came again and checked some gulls on the beach. The numbers are really impressive with 1800 black headed gulls and 200 lesser black backed gulls. It will be time to find a Mediterranean gull or something more rare!

Ringing

Dunnock 4/0

Blackbird 1/0

Song thrush 1/0

Lesser whitethroat 1/1

Common whitethroat 1/0

Chiffchaff 1/0

Willow warbler 1/0

Goldcrest 1/0

Great tit 4/0

Short toed treecreeper 1/0

Tree sparrow 2/2

Chaffinch 1/0

Linnet 1/0

Redpoll 3/0

Bullfinch 1/0

Total 24/3

Crossbill - Photo by Menno

Today the weather was too unstable to start ringing. So I could have some nice sleep for the last 8 days that are still here for me this spring. We are 41 birds apart from ringing 2000 birds this first half of the year, so that would be a nice goal to reach the 30^th of June.

The day indoor also gave me the ability to finish my internship. The result of it will be published on this site as well.

Ringing:

No ringing

People at the station: Bent and Menno

Today the weather was very nice again. And some eastern winds during the night got me quite excited. Although I had some expectations (with another paddyfield at Skagen) , the result was not that good. But that is also not that strange this late in the season. The highlight though, was to have the short toed and Eurasian treecreeper on the same day. Since both birds are quite scarce, it is quite rare. It is also very nice since the differences between the two species are not that big. In the Netherlands, short toed is the regular species and Eurasian more rare. Now that I have had the opportunity to study them both on the same day, makes me more confident in finding a Eurasian some day in the Netherlands.

Another interesting catch was the rosefinch that we caught three weeks ago. Now she had a broodpatch, indicating that she is on eggs. We didn’t see or hear a male.

Ringing:

Stonechat 2/0

Icterine warbler 0/2

Lesser whitethroat 1/3

Chiffchaff 3/1

Willow warbler 1/2

Treecreeper 1/0

Short toed treecreeper 1/0

Starling 3/0

Tree sparrow 1/0

Greenfinch 0/1

Goldfinch 1/0

Rosefinch 0/1

Totals  15/9