Jay say WHAAAAT

Ringing: More new species in the net today! I'm really on a ringing streak - Strummer also keeps pointing out how different ringing has been this past week, compared to the last weeks. 

The birds were singing like crazy this morning, but surprisingly few flew into the nets. The Yellow-browed Warbler seems to be consistently coming back every day in the same net though, and with some new input from Strummer's ringing teacher, today I decided to put it as a young bird born this year (past days we haven't managed to age it). A bit later in the morning, I was suddenly also fortunate enough to get a beautiful female Reed Bunting (Rørspurv).

Our first Reed Bunting in the net this season! Picture by Mathilde Sif Eiby.

Not that long after, Strummer calls me with more great news! As they were extracting one of their dream ringing species, the Eurasian Jay (Skovskade), a Sparrowhawk (Spurvehøg) flew into the net beside them, so we both got a new ringing species today! My Sparrowhawk was behaving so well, and then came the Jay - definitely the noisiest bird, I've ever been in a room with - it's so loud, my ears were hurting!

LOOK AT THIS EURASIAN JAY. Pictures by Mathilde Sif Eiby. 

We weren't really getting anything after that, but luckily the Bird Gods are with us, and BAM, Anton calls from the obs, saying they found the Great Skua (Storkjove) just chilling right in front of them on the beach. So happy there were no birds that round, so I could run straight to see my first Great Skua!

Today's numbers:

Observations: Today was a great day at obs - probably the best I (Anton) have had since arriving. The winds (finally) changed from western to eastern winds, and the passerines certainly noticed!

With help from Henrik, Storm, and Jakob, we managed to count large numbers of migrating finches, pipits, and other passerines, as well as some migrating waders. The most prevalent species of pipit was the usual Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis), with about 545 individuals flying past. There were, however, also okay numbers of both Tree Pipits (Anthus trivialis) and Rock Pipits (Anthus petrosus), with 25 and 13, respectively. 

As for the finches, there were 128 Eurasian Siskins (Spinus spinus), 78 Linnets (Linaria cannabina) and a couple of Redpolls (Acanthis flammea) and Red Crossbills (Loxia curvirosta). The real highlight of the day (besides the Great Skua, of course) was the Chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs) and Bramblings (Fringilla montifringilla). During the just 3 hours we spent at the standardised obs, a total of 11491 Chaffinches/Bramblings flew by. According to DOF-Basen, this is the largest number of Chaffinches and Bramblings counted at standard obs since at least 2021!

And as if that wasn't enough, we also got large numbers of Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) with 710 individuals, good numbers of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) at 115 individuals, and a decent amount of Dunnocks (Prunella modularis) at 209 individuals.

 Todays observations 

At the station: Strummer Edwards, Mathilde Sif Eiby, Jakob Hansen, Anton Ræbild Jensen, Storm Borum and Johan Them Steffensen