A good start in the week with a Red-breasted Flycatcher

Morning Observations:

Levi and I sat ready at the observation spot a quarter of an hour earlier today – the sunrise is now just on the early side of 5 o’clock. The weather was actually okay today, though very windy, so we found cover behind a bush and were ready for 3 hours of migration counting. Again today we had many resting Scoters “Sortand”, and unfortunately, like the past many days, it became a very quiet day.

But as it always is with birds, a quiet day can end up becoming a really good day and make every second of waiting worth it. However, it didn’t happen on the observation, but in the nets. An incredibly lovely little female Red-breasted flycatcher “Lille fluesnapper” had gone into the net.

After Hanelie had shown it to us, we then returned to the observation. But nothing else really happened. So a very quiet day at the observation with not really any highlights – but then it’s good that the ringing could deliver a highlight.

Todays observations can be seen here.

The ringing:

The number of birds improved a little, today I had 13 new and three recaptures. One of these thirteen made my heart beat a little faster when I saw it in the net, a very small Flycatcher looked at me. We had it written on our board for the daily tasks as a guest last week, but it did not come. For today, the Collared Flycatcher “Hvidhalsed Fluesnapper” was planned in as a guest, I would have liked to catch that one, but to be honest, our bird guest planning had never worked out for the whole season. Now I had the Red-breasted Flycatcher “Lille Fluesnapper” in my hand and that one was of course also more than welcome. As an adult female, this bird is missing an orange throat patch as in an 2k male or red throat and breast as in the 3k+ males. She is a very pretty bird though and we were all very happy about her.

Red-breasted Flycatcher "Lille Fluesnapper". Picture: Thomas Kristensen

The morning continued without any more excitement, another nice catch was a female Black Redstart “Husrødstjert”, we don´t catch these so often.

Black Redstart “Husrødstjert”. Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

Later in the morning, a former ringer of the Bird Observatory visited with his family. We went for a round in the lighthouse garden, but unfortunately, there were no birds to show.

Not a bird but another nice catch in the lighthouse garden: A Natterjack toad "Strandtudse". Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

The moths:

This morning, I found only one moth in one of my traps, Acronicta tridens/ psi "Tridens/Psi-ugle". To certainly identify the species, genitalia analyses would be required. But I am fine with knowing that it is one of the two in that case, that way, the moth can stay alive.

Acronicta tridens/ psi "Tridens/Psi-ugle". Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

One moth was very cooperative and just landed on my finger. It was a new one for me, Epinotia tedella “Grannålevikler”.

At the station: Joseph Stephan, Thomas Kristensen, Emma Gray, Marit Nillissen, Levi van den Os, Hanelie Sidhu and our guest Kristoffer Hansen