Ringdue!!!

After the insane day of ringing yesterday, we were all hoping that today would also bring some great birds.  Even though we started the morning catching less, we were still consistenly getting 3-5 birds per run.  We were ringing many of our common captures (Sangdrossel, Tornsanger, Løvsanger, and Jernspurv) but the highlight of the  morning was definitely a Stonechat (Vestlig Sortstrubet Bynkefugel) we caught in the lighthouse garden.  Even though we catch a few each season, there aren't many ringing locations in Denmark that get them so it was Merit's first time ringing one in Denmark.  It was a very nice 1k (first year) male that was a bit further along in it's moult compared to the ones we've caught previously during the season.   

Later in the morning we also had a pretty sudden movement of fog, which was promising for potentially increasing the number of birds we capture (if visibility is low enough birds may stop migrating and will hopefully fly into the nets).  While the fog can mean great things for us ringers, it made it much harder for the observers and the visitors from Feltud to detect birds during the morning surveys.

Once the morning obs. where finished, we had David and Andreas (one of the visitors from Feltud with a recently renewed X license) join us for our net runs. Even though we weren't catching much, Andreas was able to ring his first bird in over a decade (a Tree Sparrow (Skovspurv) which he was very excited to get in hand) which was very nice.  

In between net rounds we were discussing some potential catches we were hoping for and I mentioned Wood Pigeon (Ringdue), a bird that I have been trying to catch since I arrived here in July.  I've talked about it a good deal with pretty much everyone and even though we had almost caught one a few times, we had not had any luck yet.  Bent told me he could almost promise that we would catch one while I was here but I was getting less and less hopeful that we would be able to sucessfully ring one.  I mentioned this while we were starting our next net run and everyone else agreed that the chances of getting one were pretty slim.  Once we got into the garden, I was checking the first net when suddenly there was a commotion and I ran out to see Merit with a Wood Pigeon (Ringdue) in the open net near the pond.  

Thankfully it was extracted without much trouble and I went through the rest of the net run giddy to get to process it.  Once it was time to bring the pigeon out of the bag, Merit taught me how to handle birds that size (this was by far the biggest bird I've ever ringed) and it was so insane how large and powerful it was.  

When we were processing the bird, I would either use this combination of ringers grip/holding the feet wings and tail or brace the bird against my chest to secure it.

Actually going through and taking the data for this bird was so surreal, we were able to age it as a 1K very easily but the rest took quite a bit of work.  It was a two-person job taking the wing length, with one person securing the wing and the other flattening it on the ruler.  We used the largest cup possible to weigh it and it came out to 410 grams! 

It was crazy how we had to use a different set of tools for almost every part of this bird.  We used different pliers to close the steel ring, a different ruler for wing length, and this massive cup to weigh it! 

After we took a few photos and released it, we finished closing nets and it took me a while to begin to calm down after finally getting to ring one of these birds.  

Even though they are very common here, this was without a doubt a dream bird for me to get to ring.

After we were done ringing, I went out to Grønningen with both Andreases and Jens to look for some shorebirds.  We ended up with some nice birds including a Curlew Sandpiper (Krumnæbbet Ryle), Green Sandpiper (Svaleklire), Ruff (Brushane), and my lifer Common Snipe (Dobbeltbekkasin).  

It looks like we'll be getting southwestern winds for the next few days so hopefully our luck will continue! 

People at the station: Louis Poulsen, Joseph Stephan, Strummer Edwards, Andreas Pedersen, Merit Lenk, as well as visitors from Feltud