For two days Jonathan and Andrew (aka Jon and Andy) was
visiting Gedser bird observatory and ringing station. The primary purpose was
to learn to extract birds from mist nets and handling of birds.
They arrived shortly before 2000 hrs on Tuesday evening in
order to begin their training very early in the following morning. The weather forecast
for Wednesday was not exactly promising for ringing.
The following morning Louis arrived early – before the head
ringer Ruben was up – this was simply due to the fact that it was raining. So
tea and coffee was made for us all.
After a while Andy and Jon woke and the rain ceased just
enough for Ruben to feel it was safe to set up a few nets. Hans Lind had also made
his way to the station despite the not too promising weather.
Despite the weather Andy and Jon did manage to handle a
few birds this the first morning.
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| Andy with his first shrike - happy young man |
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| Jon with his first shrike - skillfully demonstration that a hand must be held over the wings too |
After about three hours we had to close the nets due to too
much rain. A quick breakfast, tea and coffee and it was time to discuss their
project in more details and to hear what they were hoping for to accomplish in
Indonesia – which is going to be where there their field work eventually will
take place. Louis poured from his experience from his many years of work in the
tropics. And later tried to give Jon and Andy feel of how a camp could be set
up – this via a few slides from his own camps in Tanzania.
Lunch break and a long session with opening and folding of
nets on the loft of the station followed until almost 3 pm. It was really great
to be able to work indoor with this – a great opportunity and advantage of the Gedser
ringing station.
The wireless internet was set up to they could be in contact
with the world – much appreciated.
Following Thursday (yesterday) morning they were up at around 0500
hours – and we were off into the garden where thanks to Ruben all nets had been
set!! Thank you J
So following Hans’ arrival we could begin the session with
extracting birds from the nets – all in all Jon and Andy managed to extract
between 10-15 birds each which was a good number and not stressful.
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| Two Shakespeare? Or Romeo and Juliet? |
During this sunny day we also had reasonable views of two red-breasted flycatchers,
a few eiders, barnacle gees, common and honey buzzards and heard a serine and a
funny sounding white-throat on this very beautiful but windy day – Jon was
really cold so he was “set to do some hard work”.
Around lunch time even Jon felt a bit warmer so Jon and Andy enjoyed their lunch in front of the ringing stations' house.
Though shortly before lunch a nice bird was caught;
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| A female cross-beaked redstart! |
The danish version......
I to dage blev
der afholdt et lille men intensivt kursus i håndtering og udtagning af fugle
fra spejlnets på Gedser Fuglestation. Den første dag var meget regnfuld så
efter en sen morgenstart netop på grund af regn blev det kun til ca. tre timers
med net oppe men alligevel lykkedes det at få fugle i hånden til kursisterne Jon
og Andy. Efter de tre timer var det tid til inden døre diskussioner omkring
deres feltarbejde der skal tage plads i Indonesien og udveksling af erfaring
fra feltarbejde i Tanzania. Senere var det tid til at lære at håndtere spejlnet
og lære at lukke dem – dette kunne kun lade sig gøre takket være Gedser
fuglestations meget store og lange loft hvor vi så kunne gøre dette i ro og mag
og uden den silende regn der faldt udenfor.
Anden dage bød på
et markant vejrskift og godt var det da det var mange fugle for Andy og Jon at
lære at tage ud af nettene. Det forløb godt og hele dagen bød på masser af sol
men kold vind og meget af sidst nævnte.
Ved 14-tiden var
det tid til Andy og Jon at vende tilbage til København.
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| Jon, Andy and the head-ringer Ruben from Spain! |
Ruben, Hans og med hjælp fra Louis og Gert naturligvis
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