The Hawfinch

Today was another beautiful sunny day at Gedser Fuglestation. The garden was brimming with activity, with lots of White Wagtails and Chaffinches hanging around. Unfortunately not many of them wanted to go into the nets, making for a slow day of ringing. This morning 16 new birds were ringed and 4 retraps were caught. Despite low numbers species diversity was good, and ringing a Hawfinch - a new species for me - was the highlight of the day. It was brilliant to have one in the hand - what an impressive bird!

The mighty Hawfinch.
The glossy purple tinge to the secondaries in the wing indicates that this bird is a male.

Slow days like today give me an opportunity to take my time to have a close look at European birds in the hand. Today it was particularly interesting studying a retrap Dunnock which was first ringed in April 2014 as a 2k. As expected of an adult Dunnock, no moult limits were observed in the Greater Coverts, the eye was reddish-brown, and the throat was particularly grey; however the palate was pale grey/white and not black, suggesting that palate colour may not be such a reliable character for ageing the species.

Breakdown 03/04/2015:
Wren - 1
Dunnock - 4
Robin - 2
Song Thrush - 1
Goldcrest - 2
Blue Tit - 2
Chaffinch - 2
Greenfinch - 1
Hawfinch - 1
TOTAL = 16


Lizzy Joyce