NUTCRACKERS FOR EVERYONE

Ringing: Today started out as another chill day with lower volume - 19 birds of 10 species. And what a beautiful morning here at the station!

Our view when doing rounds at the station. Picture by Mathilde Sif Eiby.

Our first cool encounter of the day were two Bullfinches (Dompap), a male and a female. Bullfinches normally don't like being held for too long, so after doing data we just took a single picture and let them go on their way. 

Bullfinches - to the left a young female born this year, and to the right a probable adult male from a previous year. Picture by Mathilde Sif Eiby.

The rest of the standardized ringing went by, but just when we were about to go on our closing round, Storm sent a promising message in the group chat: "NØDDEKRIGE". (Nutcracker). Shortly after Johan came down to the station with a big smile and handed me a bag. And if you thought our fourth Nutcracker in 8 days (and fourth one ever ringed at the station) wasn't enough; while I was ringing it in the lab, Henrik came in with ANOTHER ONE. They'd seen the second one fly over, and after a few seconds of Antons famous mixtape, it had too gone straight into the net! 

Anton and I displaying today's Nutcrackers. Picture by Henrik Böhmer.

One of the Nutcrackers stayed around for a little while after we released them. Picture by Anton Ræbild Jensen.

With five Nutcrackers now having visited our nets, we're starting to get a better understanding of the ageing. The two birds today were both young birds born this year, with moult limits in the feather group called medium coverts, between the few retained old baby feathers that are browner, shorter and with wide white tips, and the rest new black feathers with triangular white tips. They also both had retained juvenile greater coverts and primary coverts - both feather groups with white tips on all feathers, of which adult birds should have no or only few white tips, according to our favourite french book. If you look at the pictures from the 16th, you can see the adult bird we had for comparison!

*BETTER PICTURE COMING SOON*

Two young nutcrackers from today.

The adult Nutcracker from the 16th of october. Aged by the lack of white tips on greater and primary coverts, as well as pure adult feathers in the medium coverts with solely triangular white tips. Picture by Mathilde Sif Eiby. 

Today's numbers:

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Today's observations