A productive day

Today is the first day of ringing in Grenen for new volunteers arrived yesterday evening, Mads and Joakim. We open the nets at 06:00 am.
The day is good, and we take the opportunity to clean all the grass from the nets. We capture a good number of birds, many of them juveniles, and two common redpolls, beautiful for me, as they are not common in Italy. Mads and Joakim are very enthusiastic about catches, and eager to learn, they listen and they are very careful while I and Peter ringing each bird. At 9:30 we close the nets. In three and a half hours we ringed 24 birds.We all go back to the observatory, and while Peter and I resume our indoor tasks, the boys go to Skagen to do their shopping for the observatory.

In the afternoon Simon, Peter and I meet in Birder's club, to illustrate new works and proposals, and think of new ideas for optimising the Birder's club, in terms of open space for the reception and entertainment of visitors to the observatory.
Subsequently Mads and Joakim join us, and we move on to the study of the age of the passerines, one of the most important activities to consolidate the experience of ringing, which Simon promotes in the observatory involving all the volunteers. Simon projects images of different individuals of different age classes, belonging to different species and with different moulting strategies, onto the maxi-screen. The participants, provided with a wing scheme and ageing codes, must correctly determine the age of each individual. I think it is one of the most effective methods to study and better understand the moulting strategies of passerines. Later I explain to Mads and Joakim the operation of the ringing database, and together we input today’s ringing data.

As soon as we finish Mads and Joakim start preparing dinner. They prepare a delicious dish, I think in Danish style, that Peter and I appreciate very much!
After dinner there is a daily meeting, we speak about today's activities and plan the following days.
Today was a very productive and instructive day.

Ringed birds:         
6 Whitethoat          4 Crested tit
2 Blackbird            1 Reed warbler
1 Great tit.             3 Lesser whitethroat
1 Reed bunting      4 Blue tit
2 Common redpoll

Simon giving a moult lecture

Crested tit and blue tit juveniles