Sunny Weather, Wind and More Goldcrests: Not Number 600 Again!

On our second day in Blåvand, we were lucky enough to join Hanelie again for ringing in the station garden and at the lighthouse. While the south south-western winds with 6.7 - 8.7 m/s brought many new migrating sea birds to the shore, it was not ideal for bird banding passerines: On the one hand, smaller birds fly less in stark winds – on the other, the mist nets used for ringing are constantly moving and thus, more visible. Consequently, birds are not as easily tricked to fly into the nets. Nonetheless, we were able to observe many migrating passerines, such as Siskins in the trees all around the gardens and greater flocks of Chaffinches in the whole area between station and lighthouse. 

All in all, it was a rather quiet but very beautiful day for ringing with sunny weather and many typical garden species, such as Song Thrush and Great Tit.

Great Tit/ Musvit

But the most prominent species with more than 20 birds was, just like yesterday, the Goldcrest – especially, as it turned out, a first calendar year female with the ring number U23600 that was ringed two days prior. It showed up in the nets several times at the lighthouse garden yesterday and today. When birds are recaptured several times the same day, they are usually set free right away. That is not to cause extra stress for them. We also recaptured a Tree Sparrow with the ring number CX11684 that was ringed on 31 May 2022 at the station garden by Morten: Back then, Morten identified it as at least in its second calendar year – which means that it now is at least three years old.

Tree Sparrow/ Skovspurv

Since most of the later rounds were quite slow, Hanelie gave us the opportunity to ring some of the birds: Janosch got to work on his measuring technique and Hanna got to ring her first two birds: a female and a male Black Cap, both in their first calendar year.  

In the afternoon, an hour before sunset, we went to the beach to look for waders: On a sand bank close to the lighthouse, we watched Dunlins, Sanderlings, Bar-Tailed Godwits, Oystercatchers and Grey Plovers in the setting sun. We really enjoyed our time at Blåvand and are excited to come back to ring more birds!

The moths:

It was four moths species, that I caught today in the traps. I will show Agrochola lota “Pile jordfarveugle”. It is a common but nice species that flies from September to November.

Agrochola lota/ Pile-jordfarveugle

Observations:

Vinden var fin med omkring 8 m/s og fra en ssø’tlig retning, hvilket lige var ét for meget s til at det var helt godt, men det blev en helt og aldeles godkendt dag på hukket.

Til at starte med skete der ikke det helt store, ..hvad der skulle ende med at blive en rigtig god Stormmåge dag var allerede ved at tage til, der kom en god sjat Bjergvipstjerter drøssende, og en fin Almindelig Kjove.

Der kom senere lidt finker, men der kom aldrig rigtig gang i noget seriøst træk af småfuglene.. …troede man, indtil halv 10 tiden og en time frem, hvor der efter en ellers meget nedadgående småfugle trend, pludselig kom finke flokke væltende og på en time havde vi 2400 finker, lidt siskner, og en del Rørspurve også, det døde dog hurtigt ud igen, og i timen efter havde vi 105 finker…

Lidt over 10, sammen med småfugle rykket flyver en sjov piber kaldende med to kald henover obs-posten, den er endnu ikke bestemt 100%, men vi mistænkte den for en Tajgapiber, og har heldigvis en optagelse som forhåbentlig kan fortælle os det...

At the station: David, Louis, Lorin, Hanna, Janosch, Hanelie, Henrik.