A nice break from the slow days

Obs:
As the wind had died down during the night expectations were higher than previous days. I might even dare to say that the expectations were met as we had rather a good wader day. A good amount of oystercatchers were migrating past all morning and quite many turnstone too. Red knots showed in some decent flocks and there was a steady flow of dunlin all throughout the obs. We were pleased enough to stay an extra hour but then things slowed down rather much. We did a quick count of the beach which once again held a 1cy Mediterranean gull.

After obs Johan and I went for quite a birding trip through the outer dunes and checking the bushed along there. We had some willow warblers, pied flycatchers and there seemed to be a decent fall of wheatears.

Tomorrow the wind will pick up from the western corner again. Perhaps seabirds, perhaps not? We will find out:)

Todays observations

Ringing:

Also at the ringing we had decent numbers. While Strummer got their turn at catching a bunch of Willow Warblers (Phylloscopus trochilus), many of which were 2k+ (adult) birds, up at the lighthouse, I tended the nets at the station garden, which produced a decent mix of birds, among them a young male Blackbird (Turdus merula) recapture, as well as some Yellowhammers (Emberiza citrinella), Icterine Warblers (Hippolais icterina) and Pied Flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca). The highlight for me was no doubt the two young Bullfinches (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) I caught, one of which was in complete juvenile plumage while the other was just starting on its post-juvenile moult, with a few bright red moulted feathers on its cheek and breast revealing it to be a male.

After standard, we were starting to run low on bird-bags, but I kept the station garden open for another hour to get just a bit more out of a good day, and to use the last clean bags before washing them after net-close. In total, we ended up catching 34 birds, of which 29 were new birds and 4 were recaptures (one of them was the Chiffchaff (Phyloscopus collybita) from Spain, which is not included in the overview below). Although it wasn't many birds by many standards, compared to most recent days out here at Blåvand, it has been a very good day indeed!

Today's captures:

At the station: Strummer, Alba, Jonas, Johan