A calm day and a goodbye dinner

Observations:

Marsh Harrier record count! Today, weak to moderate southeast winds in the morning provided good conditions for raptor migration at Blåvandshuk. Totals of the day were 46 Marsh Harriers (many of them heading southwest, out to the sea), 62 Kestrels, 1 Red Kite, 3 Sparrowhawks and 1 Osprey. Visible migration of Yellow Wagtail and Tree Pipit was also seen from the Wader Spot. 

Large gull groups (around 5,000 individuals in total) resting and feeding in the low tide gave a good chance to check them: at least 72 Caspian Gulls, mainly adults and advanced immatures. Also a 1K Mediterranean Gull.

Wader migration was not bad, with almost 1,000 Oystercatchers and a good variety of other waders. 

Ringing:

It was an interesting day for the ringers, with no recaptures all day, but 14 newly ringed birds. We caught a couple migrating Common Redstarts (Phoenicurus phoenicurus), but otherwise the totals were back down to the numbers we've grown used to. 

We decided to put up the swallow-net, which rewarded us with two new House Martins (Delichon urbicum), both of them beautiful adult birds. 

One of the shiny Martins.

Around 5pm, Henrik came to the station for our goodbye dinner, as I will be leaving tomorrow morning and the Totos leave on Sunday. We ordered pizzas and sat together outside, in the nice company of the local House Martins, Tree Sparrows (Passer montanus) and Wood Pigeons (Columba palumbus), while Sandwich Terns (Thalasseus sandvicensis) flew overhead. 

When dinner was over, Strummer, motivated by the presence of many Wood Pigeons, turned on our speaker with Wood Pigeon calls and put it under the swallow-net, with high hopes of catching one of them. As all 10 of us waited, watching the net for (in many of our opinion) too long without anything happening, we finally gave up and went our separate ways. Who knows if, one day, Strummer will manage to catch one of the elusive birds. 

One of the Wood Pigeons in question.

I had a wonderful last full day here at the station, and I will miss the lively company and the (not so many) birds. Hopefully, the migration will pick up soon, so that my friends here can be woken up from their birdless slumber and get to work! I am very grateful that I got to spend some time here at Blåvand Fuglestation and will definitely come back to visit in the near future. Thanks for an amazing experience!

After dinner, we finally got around to taking the group photo that we've been wanting to take for about a month.

A beautiful last sunset at the counting spot.

Today's totals:

At the station: David, Miguel, Lois, Nico, Alba, Strummer, Johan, Ida, Henrik, Jonas, and Stig Nielsen