Return of the Grackle!

Observations:

Eastern and southern winds from the last couple of days were replaced by weak westerlies, with a small rain front just southwest of Blaavand for most of the day. 

These conditions proved to be very good for Oystercatchers. Over 1300 were counted, but the real number of birds passing during the whole day could be even higher. There were some other waders on the move, but with much lower counts: Bar-tailed Godwits, Red Knots, Sanderlings...

Close groups passing just over the shoreline allowed good photographic opportunities to study ageing, sexing and intra-species variation in some features.

Ringing:

The eastern winds of yesterday have left us and the north-western winds have returned. These are not the ideal conditions for ringing, which is reflected in the fact that we only caught 8 birds today. It did not help that we had to close the nets after only 3 hours due to rain, and the looming threat of heavy rain showers on the weather radar kept us from opening them again, thus ruining the standard time :(

During the little time we did get to ring, Johan had the opportunity to show his visiting father how ringing is done, as well as showcase his skills at extracting and handling the birds, which have improved greatly during the two weeks he's been staying so far. Johan will be leaving us for the weekend, but will return come Sunday, so hopefully he gets to enjoy sleeping in for a couple of mornings. 

After the nets were closed, Henrik talked with Strummer about a call he had recorded shortly before, which was confirmed to almost certainly be from a grackle! So out we went to try to find it, but it was no use, since it was nowhere to be seen, probably already having flown further inland. We really hope to see it again some-time in the near future, especially since most of us have never seen a grackle before.

The captures of today:

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