Bird Words

As the sun continues its cruel march toward an earlier sunrise every day, so too must we set our alarms earlier. Today, my alarm was set for 4:25 am but I know in a month or two that will seem like a sleep in. Mara and I headed out to the ringing site and opened the nets for 30 minutes before sunrise. We had a bit of a slower day but we caught our first Reed Bunting (Røspurv) of the season which was a nice treat.

A handsome boy - the Reed Bunting (Rørspurv)

Janna, Cora, and Rasmus headed out to observe birds at World’s End 3 a bit later than us. They had a good morning. Our good friends the King Eiders (Kongederfugl) continued their stay there - we hope they'll start paying rent soon. Our other good friend the Glaucous Gull (Gråmåge) also made an appearance right at the end, he's too loveable to pay rent. One Shag was seen (Topskarv) and a Pied Wagtail (Sortrygget Hvid Vipstjert) decided to come by as well.

Pied Wagtail a female- Sortrygget Hvid Vipstjert (Photo: Knud Pedersen)

In the afternoon, Rasmus, Janna, Kora, and I headed to Flagbakken in hopes of some good raptor migration. The raptors were fairly slow with nothing out of the ordinary but I did enjoy learning the different tit songs. We also heard a Chiffchaff (Gransanger) making the song of Spring.

Scoping out some raptors

I baked some cookies for everyone (we have a rule here that you have to make one baked treat per lifer you see, I used a loophole to bake 24 cookies - 1 per lifer). They turned out very flat (apparently that happens when your sugar ratio is too high, I've used this recipe tons of times though and never had this issue?? I'm blaming the oven) but were still enjoyable. The rest of the crew is about to head out for some pre-sunset raptor watching, everyone’s hoping to see the Steppe Eagle (Steppeørn) at some point.

Observation Highlights

Kongederfugl – 2

Topskarv – 1

Gråmåge – 1

Sortrygget Hvid Vipstjert  – 1

Sildemåge – 1

Ringing

Fuglekonge – 1

Jernspurv – 1

Gærdesmutte – 1

Røspurv – 1

Solsort – 2

Total: 6

Today’s observations in Dofbasen from observers in the area

People: Cora Köberle, Janna Ouedraogo, Mara Glane, Rasmus Matthiesen-Juhl, Christopher Moser-Purdy, Knud Pedersen, Simon Sigaard Christiansen, Gunnar Simonsen