Today was a beautiful sunny day and with quite a view birds ringed the day was made even better. In total 40 ringed birds and 8 recaptures. A wood pigeon turned up in a net at the station garden in the morning. Quite uncommon a bird that size getting caught in the net. It was surprising to learn that wood pigeons look quite creepy up close, they have a reptilian look to them, especially the eyes.

Henrik observed more than 200 eiders migrating, otherwise there was nothing special going on for March migration.

Henrik and I set up the new nets behind the lighthouse garden this afternoon.  The four new nets add 42 extra meters of net! Most of the preparations were already done, here and there some tree branches needed to be cut off in order for the nets to be stretched out safely between the poles, but nothing major. We are really excited to start using these nets and see what we might catch. If the weather allows it, they will be used for the first time upcoming Saturday (there are some strong winds predicted, so we have to see).

The weather conditions for tomorrow do not start great. It looks like we might have some rain until 9 o’ clock, so we might start later with opening the nets. We will have to see in the morning if the rain clouds have changed direction or not. After the rain has passed it does look like it will be a sunny afternoon.

People at the station: Henrik, Morten and Maxim

Blåvand Fuglestations styregruppe havde i løbet af efteråret besluttet at rykke startdatoen for standardobservationerne til 20. marts om foråret. Det er bl.a. pga. mange fugletomme dage i starten af marts. Vi havde glædet os til at komme i gang, men desværre var hukket indhyldet i tæt tåge fra morgenstunden. På obsen kunne vi ikke engang se strandkanten og obsen måtte opgives efter kun at have set en hvid vipstjert, to stære og en engpiber på den første time. 

I morgen lover de rigtig fint vejr med god sigt og sol, men dog med nordenvind. Der skal nok komme noget alligevel. 

Lidt bedre gik det i nettene, hvor Morten lidt senere kommer med en opdatering. 

En tur på Grønningen gav os usædvanligt få fugle i området, som eller har været relativt godt gennem februar og marts. Ved hestefoldene nord for Hvidbjerg Camping lykkedes det dog Henrik at finde en sortrygget vipstjert, kun årets anden fugl. Ellers lidt spredte sangdrosler og en sædvanlig sortstrubet bynkefugl. 



Ringmærkernes opdatering på dagen:

Det var endelig en dag uden vind og vi kunne i tågen åbne alle net i begge haver.
Fyrhaven holdt vi igang i de 5 standardtimer og i Stationshaven blev det til 10 timer med åbne net.
Samlet fik vi sat ring på 23 fugle og havde 6 genfangster af fugle mærket her tidligere.
Bl.a. en hun Bogfinke, som jeg ringmærkede for nøjagtig et år siden d. 20. marts 2023.
Alderspræsident var dog en gammel Jernspurv, som Timmy satte ring på 08. marts 2022.
Siden da er den blevet genfanget 9 gange i marts til maj 2022.
Den kom retur 30. marts 2023 og blev da genfanget yderliger 7 gange i april og maj, plus den eneste genfangst om efteråret d. 01. oktober 2023.
Vi får se, hvor mange gange dette forår, at vi får fornøjelsen af den.

Undervejs på dagens netrunder fik jeg forstyrret NaturKulturVardes naturvejleder Kirstine, der havde et arrangenment med en lille gruppe i Naturskolen og på stranden.
På et tidspunkt, hvor gruppen var på gårdspladsen, fangede jeg en Fuglekonge og en Skovspurv.
Jeg tilbød dem, at få set ringmærkningen af de to fugle og det blev taget vel imod, selvom den del ikke var planlagt på Kirstines program.

Even though there was a strong wind today, we hit a new record of 49 ringed birds. Morten and I were hoping to hit the 50 mark, but this gives us something to look forward to in the future. It looks like tomorrow we might have some mild weather conditions, so maybe we hit the 50 real soon. Slowly more and more birds are coming our way and there have been some species lurking around that will end up in the nets one of these days. The one I have been excited about in particular are a male and female stonechat that have been foraging not to far from the station garden. I have heard their typical stone tapping sound in the dunes in the Netherlands many times, but never seen them up close.

Of the 5 recaptures today, there were two special guests. A Dunnock with a ring from Helgoland, Germany and the other was a Blackbird with a ring from London, England. The corresponding institutes have been notified and we will be waiting for an answer to get to know a bit more about these two.

Today we also had our first real success with the claptrap Morten has been setting up in front of the station. We had caught two robins with these traps in the past days, but they managed to escape before ringing them. A blackbird was caught in one of the claptraps today and we managed to get it out without escaping. Now we have our eyes set on the wagtails that have been showing up around the station. They should be a perfect condidate for this type of trap since they like foraging in open spaces. Maybe we get one of them one of these days.

David did some observing this morning and noted a good variation of ducks and waders, all flying south against the wind. The species that stood out in numbers were the teals with 1005 counted and 1013 wigeons.

Tonight part of the Blåvand group had another meeting about the plans for the station the upcoming year. A lot more goes into running a bird station than just ringing and observing birds.

People at the station: Blåvand group, Morten and Maxim.

Today started with rain and strong winds that persisted throughout the day, because of this the nets opened around 6.30 in the gardens with most nets at the lighthouse garden staying closed because of the strong winds.  After a view hours we decided to close the nets in the lighthouse garden all to gether. No birds were caught there and with the bad weather we wanted to be able to check the nets more frequently. During the morning 8 birds were ringed and there were 2 recaptured robins. The nets at the station garden closed early in the afternoon.

Sven Bødker from dof stopped by in the afternoon and donated some books to the station. The books are very much appreciated! It was nice to meet Sven and to get to know him a little over some coffee.

Books donated by Sven Bødker

Later in the afternoon Morten decided to give it another go and opened the nets in the station garden. His decision was rewarded with 8 blackbirds in the net! Totalling the ringed birds of the day to 16.

Tomorrow, it looks like another day with strong southerly winds, although the rain won’t show up in the morning so we might get to see more birds compared to today. The rest of the week doesn’t look great, with more rain and days with strong winds it looks like we won’t be ringing big numbers of birds this week.

Ringed:

1 dunnock

1 robin

2 goldcrests

11 blackbirds

1 redwing

Recaptures:

2 robins

People at the station: Sven Bødker, Morten and Maxim

Efter lørdagens blæsende døgn, var der i løbet af natten sket et vejrskifte til klar luft med svag vind fra øst, masser af sol først på dagen og temperatur lige under frysepunktet ved solopgang.
Solen gav dog hurtigt plusgrader og med den svage vind kunne Maxim og jeg åbne alle net i begge haver.
DKU banden tog en morgenobs fra klitten og gåture i området inden den fortsatte mødeaktivitet inde på fuglestationen, så der var god dækning af området i morgentimerne.

Ringmærkningen var vi meget tilfredse med, da vi igen fik en dag med +30 ringmærkede fugle og en god diversitet med 15 forskellige arter.
Deriblandt både Blåmejse, Træløber og Korttået Træløber som nye arter på årets ringmærkningsliste.

Blandt de Rødtoppede Fuglekonger fik vi mærket den første hun i år, mens et par hanner også var i området.

Dagens Træløber


Dagens Korttået Træløber

Af DKU gruppens obs gennem dagen kan nævnes 224 Rødstrubet Lom og 51 Fløjlsænder over havet, mens der inde over land bl.a. var 3 Havørne, 7 Hulduer og 4 Sortstrubet Bynkefugl blandt de noterede fugle.
Efter en fælles frokost og de sidste sager på mødeliste drog DKU folket hjemad midt på eftermiddagen, så her til aften er der igen god plads på fuglestationen med kun Maxim og jeg tilstede.
Vi kan endnu engang takke weekendens besøgende gruppe for at efterlade brød, mad og drikkevare i køleskabet til flere dage fremover!

Vejrmæssigt ser det ud til endnu et skifte det kommende døgn. 
Vinden er hen mod aften taget lidt til, der er kommet udbredt skydække og varslet nedbør senere i nat.
Måske bliver vi nødt til at udsætte åbning af net lidt i morgen pga regn, men vi vil holde os klar til at få endnu en god dag ved nettene og går tidligt i seng ovenpå en weekend med masser af aktivitet herude.

Dagens ringmærkning:


Folk på stationen: DKU gruppen på 6 mand, Maxim og Morten

With strong easterly winds the nets were open for a brief time this morning. Only a handful of birds where caught, one of which a recatch of one of the firecrests. The board of the bird station gathered today and have been in a meeting for the better part of the day.

With barely any ringing going on today, I took a long hike through the dunes. Even though there were strong winds, the skylarks were pretty active and their songs filled the landscape once again. I tried spotting them while they were landing in the dunes, but they always managed to land out of sight on the other side of the hill.

Tomorrow the weather looks to be much calmer with a shift in wind direction towards the northwest.

With a view rain clouds from the southwest coming our way in the morning, Morten and I decided to wait for them to pass before opening the nets. By 6.30 the nets were open in both gardens. In total there were 32 new ringed birds and 9 recaptures.

There were a view notable catches today. There were two recaptured song thrushes, one was ringed on the 16^th of March 2023 and the second was ringed in the summer of 2020 and this was its first recapture since then. All three firecrests from yesterday ended up recaptured today as well. Looks like they decide to stick around, maybe they will end up in the nets again.

The other exciting catch was a big male house sparrow, the first of the season! It had quite the strong personality, when taking pictures of the sparrow it kept spreading its wings wide trying to intimidate us. Thank god Henrik was there to back us up, otherwise I’m not sure if Morten and I would have been able to handle the ferocious beast.

In the afternoon Bent stopped by for a chat, and David arrived early for the board meeting of tomorrow. Around four o’ clock it started raining again, so Morten closed the nets for the day. For tomorrow it looks like there won’t be much ringing going on. There are strong winds predicted, so most nets won’t be able to open if any at all.

People at the station: Bent, David, Henrik, Morten and Maxim

Sidst på natten var en kort regnfront over os med 2mm regn, men da vi gik ud lidt efter kl 6 for at åbne net, var det blevet tørt og regnbygerne ramte kysten længere mod nord.
Vi kunne derfor ringmærke hele dagen i en konstant døgntemperatur på 7 grader.
Maxim var med på netrunder i de 5 standardtimer, hvor vi havde net åbne i begge haver.
Derefter koncentrerede han sig om arbejdet med data på sin computer, mens jeg fortsatte med åbne net i stationshaven.

Det blev igen en rigtig fin marts dag ved nettene, hvor Solsorte og lidt Vindrosler dominerede morgenfangsten, mens Fuglekongerne kom spredt til haven gennem hele dagen.
Dagens highlights ved nettene blev 2 stk Rødtoppede Fuglekonger og årets første ringmærkede Gransanger her på stedet.



Henrik tog en morgenobs i klitten ved Nordhukket og havde også en god dag.
En Sortstrubet Lom blev det til blandt et par hundrede Rødstrubede.
Der var også træk af et par hundrede Mørkbugede Knortegæs, knap hundrede Lille Kobbersneppe og årets første Splitterne kom forbi. 

Vi håber på endnu en god dag i haverne i morgen, hvor Henrik igen vil komme herud til en morgenobs.
Nok i selskab med David og så bygges der op til fuldt hus på fuglestationen i weekenden, hvor DOFbasens kvalitetsudvalg (DKU) vil være samlet her for møde.
Det skal nok give ekstra øjne nogle timer i felten mellem mødeaktiviteter!

Dagens ringmærkning:


Folk på stationen: Henrik, Maxim og Morten

Early in the morning in both gardens, right before sunrise, robins were captured in the nets. Morten and I began to have a prudent sense of elation that this might be the day we will start seeing more birds. It turned out to be the case. The winds from the south have heard our pleas and have finally come to our aid! In total 36 newly ringed birds and 3 recaptures. The goldcrests (fuglekonge) came in big numbers today and we also had three first timers of the season: a song thrush (sangdrossel), a redwing (vindrossel) and right before closing the nets at the lighthouse garden around 11 o’clock, a firecrest (Rødtoppet Fuglekonge)!

The first firecrest of the season

Working on this number of birds in one day really gave me more confidence in handling them and I feel like I’m slowly getting ready for the busiest part of the season. It is a bit more tiring to walk up and down the two gardens non-stop. And so, Morten has made a hearty goulash stew full of vegetables to rejuvenate us for the coming days.

People at the station: Morten and Maxim

Så kom dagen, hvor vinden i løbet af natten var løjet af og vi kunne åbne alle net i begge haver.
Vindretningen var dog stadig fra ren øst og temperaturen i den lave ende med 3-5 grader i løbet af dagen.
Det gav ikke det store rykind af småfugle til haverne, så Maxim og jeg måtte nøjes med at sætte ring på 1 Gærdesmutte, 2 Jernspurve, 2 Rødhalse og en Solsort.
Af genfangster blev det til 1 Gærdesmutte, 2 Jernspurve og en Rødhals.
De 3 første har allerede været i vores hænder tidligere i år, mens Rødhalsen var mærket som ungfugl i oktober 2023.

Henrik kom ud til fuglestationen fra morgenstunden og tilbragte det meste af dagen her.
Først tog han en vellykket morgenobs fra Nordhukket, hvor sydtrækket af Rødstrubet Lom imponerede med hele 2142 stk.
Fra morgenobsen kan også nævnes 15 Havlit og en Kaspisk Måge.

Tilbage på fuglestationen afleverede Henrik et lækkert sæt af nyindkøb til køkkenet.
Nu er der nye gryder, pander og en brødrister, som vi kan udnytte til at få prøvet vores evner som kokke af.


Ellers stod det for Henrik på nogle praktiske opgaver med bl.a. at få lavet en kasse i indgangen til opbevaring af paraplyer og campingstole til brug for træktællerne.
En Kernebider fløj imens over haven uden at gå ned i net og må blive dagens bedste småfugl.

Maxim og Henrik fik også gjort mere klart i krattet bag Fyrbakken til at sætte ekstra net op i det område.
Alt i alt en dag, hvor de unge arbejdede godt for stationen, mens jeg tog mig af netrunder i haven og snak over kaffekopperne med Bent, der også kiggede forbi midt på formiddagen og afleverede 7 fine redekasser.

Folk på stationen: Henrik, Bent, Maxim og Morten