Grill and chill

After few days with quite bright mornings, our alarms woke us up a bit earlier today. We are not complaining about that however, as sunrises please us way more than sunsets. Signe had her first opportunity of seeing gorgeusly colored sky from the lighthouse hill and she seemed really enchanted with that view, just like everyone is. Weather generally was summerish after noon, just like yesterday, so we were doing all the rounds with grat joy, even though the birds were not numerous. And also, like usually, most of them got caughtd during first few rounds. In terms of ornithological highlights, the most interesting individuals were a Wryneck and a Linnet with Belgian ring. However, we already extracted both of them in previous days. But of course that does not make them less valuable for us, as it is always good to look at all of their characteristics and discuss the identification again, especially when there are so many ringers around. We also banded a Pied Flycatcher, which was the first one of this species this year.
Seawatching today did not differ much from last few days. Mikkel (today joined by Agata) sighted some Gannets, Scoters, a lot of Sandwich Terns and Gulls (Lesser and Great Black-backed), and also few waders.
Besides our birding work, we are still using great weather (not so great for bird migration obviously). Leona and Merit even decided to try swimming in the Sea today, as water temperature reached 10 Celsius degrees. I, however, prefer the comfortable, dry warmth of the garden, so the day of my first sea swimming this year is yet to come. Another (big) advantage of the summer-like weather is that we can make a grill for dinner, and that's exactly what we did.

Pied Flycatcher - we hope it will catch a lot of flies this season. Photo: Merit

People at the station: Agata, Leona, Merit, Signe, Menno, Mikkel, Maciej

Complete list of birds caught today (ringed/recaptured):

Vendehals / Wryneck: 0/1
Gærdesmutte / Wren: 1/0
Jernspurv / Dunnock: 1/2
Rødhals / Robin: 9/1
Husrødstjert / Black Redstart: 1/0
Sangdrossel / Song Thrush: 4/0
Munk / Blackcap: 4/1
Gransanger / Chiffchaff: 2/1
Løvsanger / Willow Warbler: 1/0
Broget Fluesnapper / Pied Flycatcher: 1/0
Kvækerfinke / Brambling: 1/0
Tornirisk / Linnet: 0/1

Total: 25/7