A short retrospect of the month May

Last month, May we were able to have the nets up for 28 days. On one of these days, we could not start at the standardized time because of the harsh weather conditions. On most of the days we continued catching up until late afternoon in the hope to get a rarity in the nets. In total we ringed 599 new birds and had over 150 recaptures.

The most numerous species were as you can expect the chiffchaff and willow warbler.  It was also nice to see that there has been some passage of trans Saharan migrants, with besides willow warbler but also around 20 records of pied flycatcher, Common whitethroat, Lesser whitethroat, Icterine warbler and common redstart. Highlight of the month were the red breasted flycatcher, house martin, barn swallows and nightingale.