Kursus for nye ringmærkere

With heavy rain forecast we were worried that the new ringers wouldn't get many birds. But we were in luck, the rain held off until 08:00 by which time we had caught 37 birds. Participants in the course had a chance to extract Willow Warblers (Løvsanger), Lesser Whitethroat (Gærdesanger), a Blackcap (Munk), a Redstart (Rødstjert) as well as the usual array of resident species. A flock of Reed Bunting (Rørspurv) also turned up in the net, a new species for us.

While it rained through mid morning there were educational presentations of ringing techniques and data collection. 


After lunch we tried our luck with the nets again and its just as well that we did! On the first net round Hans managed to catch a Ring Ouzel (Ring Drossel) that was just about to escape from one of the high nets. This was just the 12th bird of this species to be ringed at GFU and the first since October 2008. More Willow Warblers, Blackcaps, another Lesser Whitethroat and another Redstart took today´s total new birds to 51.

The day ended with explanations of moult strategies, feather notation and fat and muscle scoring. 

 Fairly strong winds forecast for tomorrow but the direction is good so we should be able to find quite a few nets out of the wind so the new ringers can have more practice.

Joe & Lucy

Rune demonstrating how to extract a bird from a mist net - Joe Krawiec

The new ringing lab in action - Lucy Dadour

Happy to have some birds - Lucy Dadour

Not caught at GFU since October 2008, a Ring Ouzel (Ring Drossel) - Joe Krawiec