The first signs of spring

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