Rainy days

Hello there, today it's the first time writing the blog for me! I am Amelie, a landscape planning student from Munich and I am happy that I will be helping at the bird station until the end of May. As it rained all night, we could only open the nets in the lighthouse garden and station garden at noon and therefore there were also no observations. So, we used the morning to do some reading and go shopping. Today there was a big gravel bike race, so we could see the many cyclists rushing up the road in the rain. Henrik came in the morning and we helped Morten in the ringing. We were able to scare a Common Redstart (Rødstjert) into the Helgoland trap and ring three beautiful Pied Flycatchers (Broget Fluesnapper). Two of them were males and one was a female and we could tell that one of the birds was a second year and the other ones were adults.

Young Pied Flycatcher with a moult limit in the greater coverts.

Today's ringing data:

Morten had hoped to photograph the Otter today, but unfortunately he could only spot a deer. Even the extra water he had put in the pond yesterday couldn't attract him. Some good news is, that Henrik and I were able to see a Whimbrel (Småspove) and a Garden Warbler (Havesanger) when we were at the nets in the lighthouse garden. It was acutally the first Garden Warbler of the season here in Blåvand.

In the afternoon there was some more excitement when we got a message on Zello from Anders. He wasn't sure if he was looking at a Glacous Gull (Gråmåge) or Iceland Gull (Hvidvinget Måge). However, when we brought him a scope and the bird showed us his beak, it turned out to be just a young, very white Herring Gull (Sølvmåge). On his way back home he also heard the first Cuckoo (Gøg) of the season.

For tomorrow we are hoping for less rain, some sun and more birds!

Fiolk på stationen: Morten, Henrik, Anders og Amelie