Standardized ringing takes off!

Observations

The heavy northerly and westnortherly winds are still showing no sign of letting up. Today it turned even more to North, but at least it didn't rain. After three days in a row with such bad conditions, almost no waders passed except Oystercatchers (152).

The most remarkable sightings were the first Alcids of the season here: a Common Guillemot and an Alcid sp. Other species which were observed migrating or moving over the sea were a male Common Eider (1), a really close male Velvet Scoter (1), Artic Skua (2) and Red-throuted Diver.

Sunrise from the census point.

Apart from the sea migration, there were a lot of Terns and Gulls on the beach and we saw some interesting species like a Golden Plover and a Grey Heron.

Ringing

Today was the first day of the standardized ringing period (open nets at sunrise and keep going for five hours). The amounts were not yet very high, with a total of 12 individuals ringed, which was partly due to the high wind speeds of around 9m/s. The strong wind meant that we had to keep quite a few nets closed, both at the station garden and at the lighthouse. Despite that, it was fun to get the team started and have everyone get familiar with the station's layout and route.

We managed to catch one bird in the Helgoland trap: the Common Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus Collybita) from Barcelona that's been caught a couple of times before at Blåvand.

Alba, Strummer & Johan at work.

Johan with a newly ringed 1CY Chaffinch (Fringilla Coelebs).

A Southern Hawker (Aeshna Cyanea) successfully freed from the net.

Today's birds:
 

At the station: David, Nico, Miguel, Lois, Alba, Ida, Johan, Strummer, Henrik