Even if not many spring birds were in the nets, an early spring greeting from the station garden: The common Snowdrop/ Vintergæk.

Yesterday did not happen so much, therefore as the season did not start yet, I decided to write a blog entry of yesterday and today. From tomorrow, the official start of the spring season, there will be a blog for every day!

I opened just the nets in the stations garden yesterday morning as the weather looked a bit unstable. It was the wrong decision, I realized soon. The weather was better than expected, but very loud work was being carried out on one of the neighboring houses quite soon after the nets were open. The noise made no bird come into the garden. With no birds, I closed the nets after some hours and went on a walk in the bog and on the beach. The Skylarks “Sanglærke” were more active than the day before and singing. On the beach I saw four Ringed Plovers “Stor Præstekrave”. I am always happy to see the first ones of the year.

Today, I woke up to have all nets in both gardens open half an hour before sunrise. It was not much that I caught, two birds got a new ring, a Chaffinch “Bogfinke” and a Dunnock “Jernspurv”. Else I had five recaptures, one Blackbird “Solsort” ringed in autumn 2019 by Lisa Flam as a 1K bird. This summer, it will be six years old! A Starling "Stær" had settled down on the top of the tree next to the ringing lab for a while and commented my mostly emty rounds with its calls and I also heared one in the lighthouse garden. Chaffinches "Bogfinke" and Yellowhammers "Gulspurv" are also alraedy singing in the morning.

Dunnock/ Jernspurv

I also had the UV light on during the night and caught one moth, in english it is called the Satellite the same as in danish Satellitugle because of the two little white points on each side of the big one. It is a moth that overwinters as an adult, not as catarpillar, as many others. There are already moth species flying, that hatched from their pupa this year. I had one species in Germany and they have also been caught in Denmark already in 2025, I am sure, soon I will catch them here, too.

Eupsilia transversa/ Satellite/ Satelitugle

In the afternoon, when I came back from grocery shopping, Svend Aage and Henrik were at the station. The last days, a part of the station had been painted and the furniture was still in the middle of the rooms. They had started putting things back and I helped them. Now, everything is on its place – it is cozy again at the bird observatory!

People: Svend Aage, Henrik and Hanelie

Hello from Blåvand Fuglestation! I arrived on Monday evening at the station, a few days before the start of the season to help setting up the nets in the lighthouse garden which we took down over the winter end of the last season. On Tuesday morning, Bent came to the station and together, we set to work. We set up all of the standard nets in the lighthouse garden. Just the four nets at Krattet, which do not count to the standard nets were left, but we saw that some old trees were fallen in the net lines and left this work for today.

Me setting up a net.

So this morning, we sawed up the trees and took them away and set up the last nets. Bent had showed me a new knot to attach the rope on the pole the day before and although I do not remember dreaming of it all night, as Bent said, I remembered it very well this morning. Bent helped me to take out the moths trap from the station, I will again catch moths with UV light this spring.

It was very foggy yesterday and today the whole time. But the military area was open and I wanted to use that to go for a walk after Bent had left. There were some Wrens “Gærdesmutte” and Skylarks “Sanglærke” – the Skylarks are a great sign that spring is starting – but else it was rather quiet. I also went into some bunkers, last autumn I had discovered some moths resting there, the same species were still there, Scoliopteryx libatrix “Husmoderugle” and Alucita hexadactyla “Kaprifoliefjermøl”.

Scoliopteryx libatrix "Husmoderugle" and mosquitos in a bunker.

When I started thinking that it was not so fun to walk in the foggy soup, I found a bat in one of the bunkers which cheered me up. I was inside quite many bunkers, also last year quite late in the season and I was wondering, why I had not found any bats, so that one was a nice surprise.

The bat.

Back from my walk, it was already afternoon but I opened the nets by the house just for two hours. It was not so bad, the Blackbirds “Solsort” are coming back, I had three new and one new Bluetit “Blåmejse”.  

The Bluetit "Blåmejse" would give a more coulerful picture but I decided for the Blackbird "Solsort" as you can see how foggy it is on this picture. In the background is the lighthouse.

People: Bent Jakobsen, Hanelie Sidhu