Finally!

Today was a very nice catching day. It was pretty warm and without too much wind. Although the wind is not coming from the best direction, it was southsouthwest where anything with east is preferred. In the standardized time, an adult male black redstart, another reed warbler ( still waiting for that Blyth/Paddyfield…) and a house martin. But the best species was caught after the lunch in the form of a female red backed shrike. Although there are 2/3/4 breeding pairs in the close by bog, we did not catch one yet. In the mourning I was very jealous on Gedser where they had a male yesterday, and we managed to catch one. What striked me the most was the starling like tail, such a shame that I am associating this species with the RB shrike. Unfortunately, Bello was on the road with his car again (on that later on more), but David managed to take some nice pictures ( for now, my phonepic is added). The rest of the day was slow, but keeping the nets open up until dinner definitely rewarded itself. And the barred warbler at Skagen was another bit of motivation.

So now on to Bello and his car. Three days ago it got repaired, the accu generator needed to be replaced. Since then, it works better according to Bello, so that is really nice. Bello wanted to ride some around in the area where the wolf has been seen this spring. So Bello took a sandy road and taught that it would be fine. But the further he came, the looser the sand became. So after some time he got stuck and digged the car in. With David around, he could help him. When David arrived, they could not manage to get it out so they were in need to call a truck to pull it out. Luckily it succeeded and the car is at the station again. End good, all good.

Ringing totals:

House martin 1/0

Jernspurv 2/0

Black redstart 1/0

Stonechat 1/0

Reed warbler 1/0

Lesser whitethroat 0/2

Common whitethroat 3/1

Chiffchaff 1/1

Crested tit 3/1

Great tit 0/3

Red backed shrike 1/0

Starling 1/0

Tree sparrow 2/0

Chaffinch 1/0

Lesser redpoll 1/0

New birds/ recaptures: 19/9

Red backed shrike female

Black redstart adult male, the first one this spring

Juvenile stonechat

Juvenile Tree sparrows, if you look carefully you see some bars on the feathers. These are called 'Fault bars' and these are basically weak points in the feather caused by a food shortage. Because all the feathers grow at the same time, you can find them on the flight feathers. In tree sparrows all feathers will be moulted in late summer and then the feathers will be of better quality. Growth bars look a bit stupid, but in the nest birds are most vulnerable so get them out as soon as possible is more important than the quality of the feathers. When feathers are made of really bad quality and will break off, the bird will start moulting it.