Where are the birds?

Morning observations:

Levi and I once again took our place at the observation spot today, ready for three hours of migration counting. But there wasn’t much migration to count, as almost all the birds chose to rest today. Even the scoters “Sortand” weren’t moving much. Fortunately, a couple of large flocks—around 550 individuals in total—chose to rest right in front of us, so we spent the morning scanning through them.

The morning actually started off well, with a good number of terns arriving in lovely flocks of around 40 birds, and a couple of red-throated divers “Rødstrubet lom” also passed by early on. So we had some hope it would continue like that, but the numbers quickly dropped off, as mentioned.

The few gannets “Sule” that were around this morning also didn’t feel like heading north today and chose instead to rest and perform their delightful head-dives to catch something to eat—hopefully before heading north tomorrow.

Todays observations can be seen here.

I found another flower starting to bloom in the garden: Liljekonval "Convallaria majalis". Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

The ringing:

Although the nets were open before the standart opening time, I did not find any birds in the first round. Second round brought a Willow Warbler „Løvsanger”, several yero round were following until a round with four Lesser Redpolls ”Lille Gråsisken” saved the day a bit. Before closing, I got one new Lesser Whitethroat ”Gærdesanger” and two Blackbirds ”Solsort” more.

Lesser Whitethroat "Gærdesanger". Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

The moths:

Luckily, I had company by some moths, that needed to be identified and I also caught two dayflying ones, that I caught with a glas. Else, it would have been a very slow morning. I had thirteen different species, one needed to remain a slash species. There were tree new for me and several new for the season. Sideridis turbida ”Prikliniet strandugle” is not so common.

Sideridis turbida ”Prikliniet strandugle”. Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

At the station: Marit Nillissen, Levi van den Os, Thomas Kristensen, Emma Gray and Hanelie Sidhu