Today was a day without much wind, resulting in a rather slow seawatch for Mikkel. Because of the low wind speeds, I was able to open up all the nets. There were enough birds to keep walking between both ringing sites. Highlights were a pair of goldfinches and some more pied flycatcher. Next to that we also had some recaptures which were ringed last year, good to see that they are all doing good. The two lesser whitethroats have done a retour Africa, quite amazing to think about that.

After some rounds with low numbers in the nets, Bent put out on Zello that he had a subalpine warbler singing in the bog. I quickly closed all the nets and arrived as 4^th, since Bello and David were already there. It was quite mobile, but always returned to the same place. After a few times the worn primaries and bleak appareance pointed us towards Moltonis warbler. When we heard a rattle call, we knew that we had jackpot. After Bello got back to the station to send out the recorder call, all twitchers in Denmark got in action. Moltonis warbler is a first for Denmark, so if you are fanatic about your Danish list, you definitely should twitch it.

Photo of the sonogram of the rattle call – Picture by Bello

Photo of the Moltoni’s warbler – Photo by Maria Rasmussen

Photo of the twitch

We think that Bent will write a bit about it since it is a new species for Denmark. When that article is out, we will place the link here as well, so the readers of the blog will get an impression how he experienced the second find of a first of the country.

After I got back, I decided to open the nets again. Although it is not comparable with this mourning, we managed to get a new for the season, a wood pigeon! Luckily Bello was in the around to help me with the measurements.

Photo of me with the wood pigeon – Picture by Bello

Ringing totals:

Wood pigeon (1/0)

Wren (0/1)

Redstart (1/0)

Blackbird (1/0)

Sedge warbler (1/0)

Lesser whitethroat (0/4)

Common whitethroat (2/0)

Garden warbler (1/0)

Chiffchaff (5/2)

Willow warbler (7/0)

Pied flycatcher (8/0)

Coal tit (0/1)

Starling (1/0)

Chaffinch (1/1)

Goldfinch (2/0)

Linnet (2/1)

Lesser redpoll (2/1)

I was joined by my parents on the count this morning, but my mother joined menno with the ringing shortly after. It wasnt very exciting on the counting although we saw a Black Throated Diver and a Peregrin Falcon.

Peregrin Falcon. Photo by Mikkel 

After, my dad and I walked to the bog and found a Spotted Flycatcher which is the first for this season in Blåvand also two grasshopper warblers. I also found a warbler I found interesting but it wasnt cooporating with us at all, and we couldn't find it afterwards only chifchaf was in the bushes so it might just have been that.

The butt of a Grasshopper Warbler. Photo by Mikkel 

Menno had a day with some fine birds especially Pied Flycatcher was a highlight as he chaught 7! 
Later I took my parents out to see the floks of Red Dear near Tane Sø. It was very sucessfull as we also saw a Bittern. 


Bitteren. Photo by Mikkel 


David joined us today and will stay until tomorrow. We went out to eat for dinner all five of us which was really nice! After My parents left. We went back to the station and soon went for a walk to the bog. We saw the Spotted flycatcher but nothing elese of interest.  Now we are going to bed.



Link to Dofbasen, here


People at the station: David, Pernille, Menno, Svend, Mikkel. 

Today was quite slow, just like the past few days. When I complained to David and Bello about it, the next round finally had some birds including a nice dark male Pied flycatcher. We also had a new species for the season, meadow pipit. When I tried to show it to David and Bello, I forgot in which bag I had put it in. Hence I gambled two times wrong, luckily I was not in the casino.

The parents of Mikkel came by today, they are in the area for a few days. Although there were not that many birds, they could witness the processing of three birds.

For next week southeastern winds are predicted, so hopefully another subalpine warbler will be in the nets here.

Picture of the seasons new bird, Meadow pipit – Picture by Bello

Ringing totals:

Meadow pipit (1/0)

Wren (0/1)

Song thrush (2/0)

Lesser whitethroat (2/1)

Common whitethroat (2/0)

Blackcap (1/0)

Chiffchaff (2/0)

Willow warbler (5/2)

Pied Flycatcher (2/0)

Coal tit (0/2)

Starling (2/0)

Chaffinch (2/0)

Redpoll (1/0)

People at the station: David, Bello and his parents and Menno

Today we had to say goodbye to Agata and Maciej unfortunately. It would have been nice if they could stay a bit longer here, but another adventure at Ottenby is waiting for them. We wish them all the best and some good birds there.

Just a few minutes before they left I found a Red-breasted flycatcher male in the stationshaven. Unfortunately it did not fly in, but later in the day it flew into one of the nets. Although every species is nice to catch, I must admit that this has been they best bird so far. It was already the third new species for the season. Earlier this day we were able to ring garden warbler and sedge warbler. We only miss a few species that still need to return from Africa, such as Spotted flycatcher and Icterine warbler.

Pomarine Skua doku shot by Bello

The seawatch was also very productive, although the limited vision. Maybe because of a bit of mist, an artic skua decided to rest on the beach. In a short time, it got chased away by some gulls. Next to the resting one, he saw three more and a pomarine skua. A kittiwake could also be added to the observationlist.

Definitely the species of the day! – Picture by Bello

Sedge warbler – Picture by Bello


Also !! The blog from the 9th is posted now!

Dofbasen link here

Ringing totals:

Blackbird (2/0)

Song thrush (1/1)

Sedge warbler (1/0)

Lesser whitethroat (0/2)

Garden warbler (1/0)

Chiffchaff (7/2)

Willow warbler (4/0)

Red breasted Flycatcher (1/0)

Pied flycatcher (1/0)

Linnet (1/0)

Bullfinch (2/0)

People at the station: Agata, Maciej, Bent, Bello and Menno

Today we experienced something spectacular

The day started a quarter past 5 with counting. it was pretty calm not much of interest until i see a huge group of birds going really high i get the scope on them and i think golden plovers, so i try to count them althoght it is difficult as the group change alot but minimum 500 so i write that down. a bit later i see another group but this time it is so big i thought it must be geese. but no,same spiceies and the flok is enormous. i dont know how many there was so i write the minimum down at least 3500. another group comes even higher this time and it is a bit smaler than the first one but i note it as 500 also.

Bent and Svend Aage are visiting  us today and we sit outside in the sun. I then go for a walk in the area, sadly the military area is closed so i go around near the station. three wrynecks hang out behind the station.

Wryneck, Photo by Mikkel Bello

I walk to the ‘hole’ in front of the dunes south west of the parking lot where a wagtail with yellow head is flying up, it is calling a couple of times but it doesn't sound like a Citrine Wagtsil though it looks like one on my pictures, so i call it out as possible citrine.
I walked quickly back and Bent and the others agreed, it looked like a citrine.

Yellow Wagtail, Flavissima (Citrine Wagtail look alike) photo by Mikkel Bello

We walked back there and found it again this time it is flying around and is for sure not sounding right. Then it went down and now we see it clearly and the pictures I took confirmed it. A Yellow wagtail of the subspecies flavissima which is also called yellow headed yellow wagtail. It is also pretty rare and a good find!

Yellow Wagtail, Flavissima. Photo by Mikkel Bello

later bent textst me if i'm sure i saw 4500 golden plovers as it would be a new record for blåvand, the previous is 600 something, and the red knots should begin to migrate in big groups now. ok so to make it short. i start to doubt if it was really golden plovers and not red knots, and later we see a big group flying past the station so we go out to watch the migration in the evening. here we see some nice groups as well but for sure knots. so i correct myself and enjoy the nice migration. Apart from 2000 knots that evening we also saw good migration of scoters and velvet scoters. The last mentioned I was also very surprised to see in bigger numbers than 5-10 in floks! We had some groups with more than 60 and saw 392! The knots ended at 1907 plus the group we saw from the station at around 400.

Had I been more aware of this phenomena I would have spent the day out and tried to get a maximum count. Also I was a bit conservative in my counting so I believe 10k+ birds could have been seen but a total of 6815 is not bad at all! 


Dofbasen link here
People at the station: Mikkel, Agata, Menno, Maciej, Bent, Svend Aage

I was quite excited today as the forecast predicted winds from SW. 
It did start okay, with Grashopperwarbler singing at the parkinglot. I stared counting at 5:30 it was a bit quiet i thought but sometimes the birds have to wake up as well! 
I was joined by Henrik, but at the time he arrived the fog arrived too. We gave it a chance but after a bit of rain the fog increased until we couldn't tell apart beach from water if we could even see the water, so we quit. Henrik went home to pack for a trip to California and I took a day off kinda. 

The ringers was unfortunatly not as busy as we hope for though so birds today but nothing really of interest. Agata cooked a nice dinner for us and went to the Bunker Mules with Maceij after the following round of ringing.  
 


Comparison between Lesser and Common Whitethroat (Gærdesanger / Tornsanger) from yesterday – Picture by Maceij

Observations on Dofbasen


Ringing Totals   new/recaptures
Robin (7/0)

Redstart (2/0)

Blackbird (1/0)

Lesser whitethroat (4/1)

Blackcap (8/0)

Chiffchaff (9/1), one of them ssp. abenetius

Willow warbler (5/0)

Pied flycatcher (1/0)

Great tit (0/1)

Tree sparrow (1/1)

Lesser redpoll (1/0)

The day started really good with the first nightingale in Denmark this year, we all heard it sing. Besides the nightingale, the ringing only started properly after two almost empty rounds. But after those two rounds, the lesser whitethroats and the phylloscopen (Chiffchaff and Willow warbler) could be found in the nets. In one of the last rounds we found another wryneck, bringing the seasons total up to 10 which means that we reached the same amount of wrynecks during the record year. With the favorable southern winds this night and tomorrow I suspect that we can catch some more. After standardized time, we decided to use some playback to lure the nightingale into the nets. Within 20 minutes it flew into the nets.

 
Sydlig nattergal, Photo - Bello

Another highlight was the catch of the first common whitethroat. They arrived some days ago, and singing in the surroundings of the station. But up until today, they managed to keep outside of the nets.  

To end the day, we got a reply of the French Chiffchaff we controlled. It was ringed in October 2020 as a 1k, making it a 3k when we controlled it. You may wonder how many kilometers it already has travelled the last two years.

The place where the chiffchaff got its ring

Ringing list (new/recapture)

Wryneck (0/1)

Wren (1/1)

Dunnock (0/1)

Robin (3/1)

Nightingale (1/0)

Common redstart (2/0)

Blackbird (1/1)

Song thrust (1/0)

Lesser whitethroat (14/2)

Common whitethroat (1/0)

Blackcap (3/0)

Chiffchaff (7/1)

Willow warbler (8/0)

Pied flycatcher (1/0)

Great tit (0/1)

Chaffinch (0/1)

Linnet (1/0)

People at the station: Agata, Maciej, Bello and Menno