Off to a redstart

Morning observation

Marit and I were at the observation spot at 5:30 AM, expecting a slow day with very little migration. However, the migration actually turned out to be quite decent today, with a good number of birds and several different species. Throughout the observation, we had quite a few resting birds. For example, we had a cuckoo “Gøg” that sang its beautiful song for us the entire time, and also a white-tailed eagle “Havørn” resting on the beach along with lots of gulls and several waders – mostly sanderlings “Sandløber”.

Today's observations can be seen here.

Ringing
Today, the wave of birds continues from yesterday. The lighthouse garden consistently had at least 1 bird each round today, with some species that excited our far-flung New Zealander. While Morten is here and collecting blood samples, the station nets stay open most of the day. Even the lighthouse garden stayed open for an extra hour after standard time today to ride the wave of bird luck. Closing round saw the addition of a female Yellowhammer “Gulspurv“ ringed as a juvenile in June 2022 (and she looked gorgeous). We also had 5 redstarts “Rødstjert” showing off their beautiful plumage. Female power was strong in the linnet’s “Tornirisk“ today as we had two delightful females.

Yellowhammer “Gulspurv“. Picture: Emma Gray

Redstart “Rødstjert”. Picture: Emma Gray

Wren “Gærdesmutte”. Picture: Levi van den Os

Linnet “Tornirisk“. Picture: Morten Jenrich Hansen

News at the station
Many people visited the station as two school groups joined us today. Bent was teaching the high school about nature and showed them a willow warbler “Løvsanger”, a wren “Gærdesmutte” and a redstart “Rødstjert” in hand. The other school group was on a biology field trip. Joseph stepped into an assistant teacher role and answered questions about the station, and showed the students the fence for the Little Terns (hopefully they start nesting within the next few days).

Bent showing the group the redstart. Picture: Levi van den Os

The day was quite warm, and the new phrase of sun’s out, shorts on was applied today (much to Marit’s dismay). You can take the kiwi out of New Zealand, but you can't take the New Zealander out of her.

At the station: Emma Gray, Joseph Stephan, Thomas Kristensen, Morten Jenrich Hansen, Levi van den Os, Marit Nillissen and Kyle Tittse