Making the most of the bad weather

Unfortunately the weather today was very windy and prevented us from putting the nets up again this morning. However, there were a couple of hours outside of the standardised ringing period later in the morning where the wind calmed down slightly, giving us an opportunity to put a few of the more sheltered nets up. Despite our efforts the wind was against us and so only 3 new birds were ringed, and 8 retraps were processed. Not a total flop though because the Brambling caught was a new species to ring for me, and one of the retraps was a Firecrest, giving Johanne the opportunity to take a look at this species in the hand for the first time. Hopefully we can get her a new Firecrest to ring tomorrow though.

The beautiful markings on the mantle and back of the female Brambling  (Fringilla montifringilla)

With rain putting a stop to this brief ringing session, Hans, Johanne and I headed over to Kroghage and Vesterhave in Gedser to bird-watch. The highlights included spotting a Jack Snipe (Enkeltbekkasin), Goosander (Stor Skallesluger), Red-breasted Merganser (Toppet Skallesluger), and - Johanne's favourite - Long-tailed Duck (Havlit).

Hans and Johanne seeing what they can find at Kroghage, Gedser

In the afternoon we put some sheltered nets up for another couple of hours, but only caught one new Robin and a retrap. It was still worth the effort though, because on one of our net rounds we spotted a very handsome male Ring Ouzel (Ringdrossel) in the garden - I think he's just waiting around for tomorrow morning so we can put a ring on him (now wouldn't that be awesome!?).

The forecast tomorrow is looking much more ringing-friendly, so hopefully we will be in for a good morning.

Breakdown 13/04/2015:

Robin (Rødhals) - 1

Wren (Gærdesmutte) - 1

Brambling (Kvækerfinke) - 1

Blackbird (Solsort) - 1

TOTAL = 4

Lizzy Joyce