Observations:

Ringing:

Today initially looked promising, with manageable winds coming straight form the south and our weather-apps promising no rain within standard hours. That promise was broken, however, when approximately an hour into standard, a good-sized raincloud was set to move over us. Because of this, we had to close the nets for more than an hour, thus ruining our standard-run of ringing. After the rain had passed, we opened the nets yet again in hopes that we migth enjoy some of the passerine-migration that Johan was seeing, but alas we had little luck, and with only a few birds caught per round, if any at all. 

Although it wasn't a great day numbers-wise, with only 12 captured birds of which 7 were new and 5 were recaps, we still did catch some nice birds. One of the highlights for me was a recapture of a very pretty male Blackbird (Turdus merula), which we caught while Johan was walking with me after returning from obs, and who made a very pedagogical example of how to age young Blackbirds.

Recap of a Blackbird. The black feathers on the body, head and some of the wing reveal it to be a male, and the juveline-type brown flight feathers on the wing, contrasting sharply with the adult-type black feathers, as well as the overwhelmingly black beak and very weak orange eye ring, all point to it being a young 1K bird that has undergone its partial postjuvenile moult. Foto: Johan Them Steffensen 

Another highlight was the very last bird of the day, a beautiful Chaffinch: 

Chaffinch male in winter plumage. Although not as colourful as when in breeding plumage, the male can still be distinguished from the female by the traces of blue on the head and wrists, as well as the pinkish hue on the chest, as opposed to females that are wholly nuances of brown. Foto: Alba M. Holmberg.

Today marked a day for seawatch. As strong winds, 12+m/s, started overnight and haven't even stopped as of writing this, seabirds were sure to turn up. This was amazing timing as we had the entirety of DKU visiting these days to complete their quality assurance work on DOFBasen. The volunteer team landed in the bunker for standard time and had the best day of the season so far. The star padded observation team turned out 35 Arctic Skua (Stercorarius parasiticus) , 1 Long-tailed Skua (Stercorarius longicaudus), 6 Sooty Shearwaters (Ardenna grisea) and and 2 Leach's Storm-Petrels (Hydrobates leucorhous)!

Leach's Storm-Petrel photographed by Henrik Böhmer

The rest of the day turned out 20 more Arctic Skua's and 2 additional Leach's Storm-Petrels. The hardest guests stood their post 6:30-19:15 today, where I had a 2 hour break, but it can definitely be said that we have been putting in the effort.

Todays Observations:

Observations:

 Observations as follows: Still good numbers of Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus) , 235. Decent turnout of Turnstones (Arenaria interpres), 33,  and the calm before the storm tomorrow B)

Todays observations: 

Ringing:

Parting of waters is, in this part of the world, most often associated with the story of Exodus, where the Hebrew god parted the waters of the Red Sea to allow for the Hebrews of Egypt to escape the country. The Egyptians themselves, however, also had experience with magically inducing similar phenomena, as is seen in the Westcar Papyrus, written more than 3600 years ago. The papyrus tells a story of the Old Egyptian king Sneferu (who lived about 1000 years ealier and built the first true pyramid) and how he on a boring day took to sailing on his palace lake, with twenty young women to man the oars. When one of the young women loses a very dear pendant and won't row until she gets it back, Sneferu consults his chief lector Djadjaemankh who, using magic, halves the water in the lake and puts it on top of the other half, thus allowing for the pendant to be retrieved.

Today, Blåvand Fuglestation experienced a silimar parting of waters. Forming out at sea, we saw huge blocks of rain-clouds approaching shore like tidal waves, but instead of hitting us, it's as if the western tip of land just outside the Lighthouse and the accompanying reef speared the clouds in half, forcing the two parts apart and leaving the Bird Station mostly dry, with only light drizzles hitting us for most of the morning. Because of this, we were surprisingly able to complete standard ringing, with us only having to close about 20 minutes prematurely when our luck finally ran out and the proper rain started to hit us. 

Despite our luck with being able to have the nets open, we were not so lucky when it came to actually catching birds in them. In total, we ended up with 13 birds caught, with 10 of them being new and 3 being recaptures. The title of most commonly caught species of the day is a tie between Eurasian Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla), Garden Warbler (Sylvia borin) and Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), with three individualt caught of each. 

The highlight of the day for me was a very pretty young Pied Flycatcher female. Although we've been able to sex quite a few of the 1K (young) Pied Flycatchers we've been catching, almost all of them have been males, with very distinct white markings on the outermost tailfeathers and very dark black central tail and rump feathers. This bird, however, had an entirely light brown tail and rump, with dirty-white markings with diffuse edges on the outer retrices, marking it as a very clear-cut case of a female bird.

Young Eurasian Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca). The light brown tail, completely lacking in blackish-feathers, and with dirty white markings with diffuse edges on the outer tail-feathers marks this as a female Pied Flycatcher. Foto: Alba M. Holmberg

Today's captures:

At the station: Johan, Strummer, Alba, Henrik

Observations:

A nice day with southwesterlies. Today I had Strummer join me from the (st)ringing team, which was a nice addition to the long mornings I've had of late. To have company today was apparently quite good, as we actually had a decent movement of waders. The highlight being good groups of Red Knots (Calidris canutus), where we had 55 individuals, and good big groups of Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica) as well, with 61 individuals! Other than that, we are continuing with the streak of high numbers of Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus). These are a pain to count, as it is quite difficult to distinguish if you've already counted an individual, but we think the number 576 we got today was representative.

Todays observations:

Ringing:

Due to precipitation in the early morning, we unfortunately had to postpone any ringing until after standard would be possible to achieve. Instead I opened the nets for a short while (about 1.5 hours) at around 8 am in hopes of maybe catching some cool birds in the southern wind, but those hypothetical birds did not cooperate and I only ended up catching 1 new bird (a male Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla)) and two recaptures, one Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) and one Eurasian Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes). 

Today's captures:

At the station: Johan, Strummer, Alba

Ringing

After many days of intermittent non-standard ringing, today conditions finally cleared up for us.  With relatively low western winds, we were able to open all the nets and catch to our maximum potential.  Up in the lighthouse, for the first time this season I was consistently catching 6-8 birds in the early rounds.  Even better, these were clearly migrants, mostly being Willow Warblers (Løvsanger) and Blackcaps (Munk).  Eventually, I had to close because of a small shower for around thirty minutes, with the ringing slowing down considerably after I reopened nets. 

In the station, Alba was having great success (Very nice!) catching Willow Warblers and even three Chaffinch (Bogfinke)! With my two Chaffinch in the lighthouse, we certainly had our best day of the season for them.  Two nice Bullfinch (Dompap) undergoing their preformative moult were also a nice highlight, the male feathers growing in are always a fun suprise.

For me, the highlight of the day was breaking a streak that has been ongoing for almost a month now.  Ever since it has been just me and Alba ringing (so we alternate gardens every morning) I have caught fewer birds than her regardless of the wind conditions, net meters, or gardens we are operating. Even when we are operating the same nets for non-standard, there is a markedly different capture rate between the two of us. After this went on for a few weeks, we officially started calling this a curse. After weeks of pain and no birds, this streak was finally broken, with the lighthouse catching 32 to the stations 28!

For obs, Johan described it as "boring with lots of Gannets (Sule)." To pass the time, Johan had a deep conversation with one of the military members stationed by the lighthouse.  

Todays observation

At the station: Johan, Strummer, Alba

Observations:

Ringing:

Looking at the radar this morning, it was clear that we would not be able to reach standard due to a large lurking raincloud that was due to pass over us at around 9. Before that, however, it looked as if we would have a couple of hours free from rain to catch birds in, just after a small initial rain-cloud passed us over. Working from this prognosis, we set out to open nets as soon as the first rain had stopped, but just after opening, we got a first-hand demonstration of the limitations of the predictive powers of the radar; the small initial rain-cloud was growing, giving rise to additional brief but heavy showers, and we were forced to run out to close the nets almost immediately again.

Deciding not to risk the weather any more this morning, we went back inside to relax while it rained for most of the morning/midday. At around 3 in the afternoon, the weather looked to have cleared up for good for the day, and we opened up the Station garden for some afternoon/evening ringing, which Johan joined in on. Although it wasn't much, we did get some nice birds, with a total of 16 birds caught, most of whom were Eurasian Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla). 

Today's total captures:

At the station: Johan, Strummer, Alba

Observations:

Today started out like other days lately. With a shit forecast. The dutiful volunteer I am, I managed to get into obs position in spite of this. I was rewarded, not with many birds, but a surprisingly lovely day of mild temperatures, cool breezes and no rain. Birds were really just low numbers of the same waders we have been seeing of late on account of the wind being quite low, and rain showers in surrounding areas. I enjoyed the morning with all my rainclothes on the ground beside me and the serenity of a still morning on Denmarks western coast.

A Eurasian Wryneck (Jynx torquilla) was found in the surrounding areas. Probably the same individual from yesterday. Sadly it didn't go in the nets so we need to wait a bit longer for that experience.

Todays observations:

Ringing:

Because of the risk of rain, there was no standard ringing today. The nets were first opened after the Wryneck was spotted, but with it not heeding our wishes and instead staying outside of the nets, we were in for a quite boring around 9 hours of ringing in the Station Garden. In spite of only catching 10 birds in total, we did get some slightly interesting species such as the fourth Spotted Flycatcher (Muscucapa striata) of the season, a very nice recapture of a Crested Tit (Lophophanes cristatus), as well as the second Marsh Warbler (Acrocephalus palustris) of the season, which was both a lifer and a first ringed of the species for Strummer.

Today's captures:

At the station: Johan, Strummer, Alba, Kristoffer, Maria

Observations:

Today started with another bad forecast. It was supposed to rain a litte bit from the early morning, but was only supposed to be an early shower to get the observers really woken up. We arrived at the hole (military exercise scheduled) at 06:15, and promply opened umbrellas for the initial shower. We could only really start the count fifteen minutes later. The day yielded almost none of the birds we enjoyed yesterday and the day before, but instead we got to enjoy 156 Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus)! The team in the hole fought through a few sturdy rain showers that were not on the forecast, but it was not enough to deter us from having a good day :)

Todays observations:

Ringing:

At the station: Johan, Strummer, Alba, Kristoffer, Maria

Observations: 

The days started poorly. I thought last night that the weather wouldn't allow me to complete standard, but the forecast changed. Only slightly. Which meant I had to get out in the rain. The experience was different from the normal, not cold, observations, and in the end the ball didn't even go up, so I could've been sitting warm and cozy in the bunker instead of in the hole. Standard yielded some mixed wader groups, and a lot of Green-winged Teals (Anas crecca) and Eurasian Wigeons (Mareca penelope). Quite decent for a wet experience.

The afternoon I got some company in the Sabines, and we put in 2 decent hours. It was nice to have the volunteer team united on the beach. We had a lot more Eurasian Wigeons (Mareca penelope) come, and as a highlight the first Brant (Branta bernicla) of the season! All in all a quite good day.

Todays observations:

Ringing:

No ringing today due to strong winds and rain.

Observations:

Today marked another hard seawatch. I am really finding out that the hardest part about observations at Blåvand is waiting for the birds. Today was eastern wind which might have been good, but migration was slow, with a lot of time between flocks of ducks. Notably we had a decent amount of Eurasian Wigeon (Mareca penelope) and a single White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) coming to look for snacks. It was a different one from yesterday as this one was a clear 1cy bird. I won't be mad if they're going to be new dailies for me. Very majestic.

Rain tomorrow looks like standard won't be able to be completed, but with rains stopping quite abruptly around 9am, we are brewing up some lethal Sabine hours tomorrow. stay tuned.

 Todays observations

Ringing:

Todays ringing was certainly slowing than the previous few days but still we had a decent movement of migrants.  By far the most numerous species were Willow Warblers (Løvsanger) with 8 birds ringed.  Besides that it was a relatively quiet day without too many highlights.  

This will likely be our last standard ringing day for the forseeable future as the next week predicts consistent showers during the morning.