More than just Redpolls

Hi there!
Nothing too special today but still some nice variety overall. For me it was time to do the migration-count together with Magnus after we participated in ringing yesterday. That meant a bit more time to sleep than yesterday. The start of the day wasn't hard at all, because we got welcomed by a nice sunrise at Worlds End 1 and pretty nice weather with less wind than expected. On our way there we met Simon, Isis and Hayley at Kabletromlen who were about to go on the first round of ringing for today.

Counting started with some nice variety of birds. We counted 47 different species in the first hour heading north to reach their breeding areas soon. Highlights were 3 flocks of pink-footed geese (Kortnæbbetgås), 4 flocks of Whooper Swans (Sangsvane), 3 Tundra Bean Geese (Tundrasædgås) and around 410 jackdaws (Allike) trying to migrate overseas and giving me some headaches splitting up and going back and forth several times. I also really enjoyed the dunnocks (jernspurv) "jingeling" up in the sky with their nice calls. Unfortunately because of the blue sky the passerines started to migrate really high in the sky, so we weren't able to locate the birds but just heard their calls. The migration of waterfowl got a bit better and we counted 1892 common scoters (sortand) in the last hour of counting. Ringing was nice so Simon told me. He, Isis and Hayley ringed a total of 21 new birds including a reed bunting (rørspurv) and 3 nice bullfinches (dompap).

After ringing and counting we got back to the lighthouse and enjoyed a second breakfast. As the message reached us, a Golden Eagle (Kongeørn) was seen close by to the lighthouse at Elle Krattet heading SW, Simon and I decided to go for a walk and maybe relocate the bird.

Golden Eagle (Kongeørn) - picture by Knud Pedersen

Unfortunately we couldn't find it, and only found some common buzzards (Musvåge) and a young white-tailed eagle (Havørn) up in the sky. But the walk was fun anyways because we stumbled over an adder (Hugorm) and common lizard (Skovfirben) enjoying the sun just like us!

After returning we were able to ring 6 mealy redpolls (stor gråsisken) in the lighthouse garden. At first we struggled a bit at ageing them correctly but were lucky to have some birds to compare and could see the differences. That was fun :)

Ringing (Kabeltromlekrattet):

Ringing (Nordstjernevej):

Today’s observations in Dofbasen from observers in the area.

Sum of the raptors in the area based on observations typed into Dofbasen the same day.

People: Hannes Schäfer, Hayley Land, Isis Khalil, Magnus Houen Lauritsen, Simon Kiesé.