Early this morning, the weather was really good. At the daylight, there was a clear sky above us and light wind. Unfortunately, it blows stronger as the morning pass, and at about 9 a.m., the nets were ineffective.
Finally, not a lot of birds but a nice diversity : another pied flycatcher, a white wagtail, redpolls, and above all, the first common whitethroat of the season. The bird was already ringed, it got caught in the site in july 2014, in its first year ! Welcome back to the place !

A quite satisfying session after all,

Birds ringed today:

Jernspurv - Dunnock: 3
Rødhals - Robins: 5
Rødstjert - Common redstart: 1
Sangrossel - Song trush: 2
Munk - Blackcap: 1
Gransanger - Chiffchaff: 1
Løvsanger - Willow warbler: 3
Stillits - Goldfinch: 4
Lille Gråsisken - Lesser redpoll : 2
Broget Fluesnapper- Pied flycatcher: 1
Hvid Vipstjært - White wagtail: 1

Yesterday night, another French ringer arrived at Gedser! It's a french invasion :) And not only of ringers.....
The weather was warmer and there was no wind at all when we opened the nets. The rounds were not quiet neither busy, and it stayed like that through all morning, which is nice and easy.
In one of the first round, we got our first Pied flycatcher and were happy about it! Some more lesser whitethroat also were in the nets.
But then, just before 10am, Charles said he had heard a nightingale! As if it wanted to prove he was right, the bird just started singing again next to the lab!
We set up the speakers and played the tape leure. After about 15 min, the bird was in the high net! And it was not the trush nightingale which is more common here but "our" classic nightingale that all of us caught sometimes in France, But here, it is a rarity and this was only the third one caught in Gedser!!
Here is a picture of this good looking bird.

All in all, we caught 55 new birds.

Birds ringed today:
Gærdesmutte- Wren: 4
Jernspurv - Dunnock: 7
Rødhals - robins: 17
Rødstjert - common redstart: 2
Solsort - Blackbird: 2
Sangrossel - Song trush: 3
Gædersanger - Lesser whitethroat: 3
Munk - Blackcap: 5
Løvsanger - Willow warbler: 6
grønsisken - siskin: 3
Stillits - Goldfinch: 1
Broget Fluesnapper- pied flycatcher: 1
Sydlig Nattegal - nightingale: 1

Today the wind was here again, but the birds.... were gone already.

They probably used wisely the weather window of these last days to move on. As a result it was very quiet in the morning as we directly noticed during the first round.

In the end we only had 6 new birds for the whole morning!!! And exactly the same amount of retraps.

Birds ringed today :

Munk - Black cap : 1

Rødhals - Robin : 2

Jernspurv - Dunnock : 2

Gaerdesanger : Lesser Whitethroat : 1 

This morning, it was still very cold in the morning, and the grass was frosten in some places. There was almost no wind this morning and it changed direction slowly from West to South. We were expecting a great day and we had one!

The really exciting bird of the day was definitely the subalpine warbler that we caught around 7am. Hans had the pleasure to ring it. This little bird (9,8 gramms!) is really not usual in Denmark and Northern Europe, it is a bird most commonly seen around the Mediterranen sea! This was the second one ever caught in Gedser, the first one was in may 2015. We aged it as a young male, maybe of the Eastern subspecies but we still are waiting for some experienced advices to stick to our decision. It flew out alright and was not seen again in the garden through all day.

Even without that rarity, this was a fine morning with 90 birds ringed! We also had our first goldfinch of the year in late morning. There were also more stunning males of redstarts. And now that we have had our first curruca yesterday, they keep on arriving and we had 4 new ones today!

Birds ringed today:
Jernspurv - Dunnock: 11
Rødhals - robins: 48
Rødstjert - common redstart: 2
Solsort - Blackbird: 1
Sangrossel - Song trush: 1
Hvidskægget Sanger - Subalpine warbler:1
Gædersanger - Lesser whitethroat:4
Munk - Blackcap: 3
Gransanger - Chiffchaff: 9
Løvsanger - Willow warbler: 8
Bogfinke - Chaffinch: 1
Stillits - Goldfinch: 1

Today, the wind left us alone again and we had a nice busy day at least, but it was still very chilly! We ringed 96 birds this morning of 13 different species!

The most common one was robins with 63 of these! So they have probably arrived during the night or early morning.
One new spring species was caught again! The lesser whitethroat was singing in the garden this morning and got caught eventually.

Birds seemed not to stay around, because we had few retraps compared to the other days. Consequently, we can hope tomorrow will be quite good as well... Moreover, the wind should change directions during the night and should head from south in the morning, that could bring us some new birds as well. Fingers crossed!

While closing, Nicolas had also the chance to observe a short-eared owl coming from the sea and continuing without stopping to the North.

Birds ringed today:
Gædersmutte - Wren: 1
Jernspurv - Dunnock: 6
Rødhals - robins: 63
Solsort - Blackbird: 3
Sangdrossel - Song Trush: 1
Gædersanger - Lesser whitethroat:1
Munk - Blackcap: 3
Gransanger - Chiffchaff: 5
Løvsanger - Willow warbler: 3
Bogfinke - Chaffinch: 3
Grønirisk - Greenfinch: 3
Grønsisken - siskin: 2
Tornirisk - Linnet : 2

At least! The wind completely stopped today and the week is supposed to stay like this! We could open all the nets for the first time in weeks!
Although the sky was blue most of the morning, the temperatude, on the other hand are still very cold in the early morning, reaching only 1 to 3 degree C. But we appreciate the sun and the raise of the temperature trough the afternoon.

Nets were closed at 12.00, with 42 birds ringed!
Two new spring species were caught: the first Tree pipit was caught early in the morning (and we forgot to take a picture) and then, very surprisingly, we caught a woodpigeon around 11!! Although this is a very common species around here, they are so big that they usually don't get caught. We had much pleasure to hold and ring that bird, which are really tricky to age and almost impossible to sex. This one weighted almost 500 gramms. Compare to our usual small passerines, which weigh 5 to 30 gramms, this is just a heavy bird!

Birds ringed today:
Ringdue - woodpigeon: 1
Skovpiber - Tree pipit: 1
Gædersmutte - Wren: 1
Jernspurv - Dunnock: 13
Rødhals - robins: 10
Solsort - Blackbird: 1
Munk - Blackcap: 3
Gransanger - Chiffchaff: 7
Løvsanger - Willow warbler: 1
Grønirisk - Greenfinch: 3
Tornirisk - Linnet : 1

Again, it was windy, grey and a bit rainy the whole morning! The wind increased dramatically and made this one of the worse ringing number, with only two new birds ringed!
One very small blackbird and one wren!

There were also 13 birds caught that were retraps.

Let's wait for tomorrow...

Birds ringed:
Gædersmute - Wren:1
Solsort - blackbird: 1

This morning, the wind was very strong but the weather stayed dry. Very few birds got caught, probably because the nets were again too visible.
Only 12 birds were ringed today, one being a reed bunting and 2 linnets.

It allowed us to do some gardening and to set up two more nets in the afternoon. Now we are just hoping for the weather to improve.

Birds ringed:
Gædersmutte - Wren: 1
Jernspurv - Dunnock: 1
Rødhals - robins: 4
Gransanger - Chiffchaff: 2
Bogfinke - chaffinch: 1
Tornirisk - Linnet: 2
Rørspurv - Reed bunting: 1

Although there were some birds in the bushes this morning, the wind did not allow us to open much nets and it made them too visible to help us catch birds.
So, in the end, it was a quiet day with only 13 birds ringed. The highlight of the day, although not as good as yesterday, proved the theory I explained a couple of days ago: Winter is definitely coming, bringing new bramblings!

My trainee is behaving well :D and we both learn a lot from his never ending questions!

We also went for a small hour to do some seawatching because the wind was still strong. Some long-tailed ducks and a little tern were our reward!

Another nice observation was a male stonechat sitting on branches in Gedser.

Birds ringed today:
Rødhals - robins: 1
Munk - Blackcap: 2
Gransanger - Chiffchaff: 3
Fuglekonge - Goldcrest: 1
Musvit - Great tit:1
Bogfinke - chaffinch: 1
Kvækefinke - brambling: 3
Rørspurv - Reed bunting: 1

Yesterday night, Nicolas, a trainee from France, arrived to help me with the station. I must say I was happy and excited to have my own trainee! And to be honest, to have some company! :D
And what's more, although we had a quite windy and slightly rainy morning, he brought the birds with him! And even more, a very particular one! Indeed, this morning we caught a artic redpoll! Fantastic! This was the fifth one caught in the station ever! Furthermore, the first one in spring!!
Of course, we are sharing this young (2k) little beauty with you:

With it, two cabarets and one flammea!

It was one of the 47 birds ringed today! Willow warbler were also in the place and few of them were singing in the garden for the first time.

Birds ringed today:
Gædersmutte - Wren: 1
Jernspurv - Dunnock: 1
Rødhals - robins: 26
Munk - Blackcap: 1
Gransanger - Chiffchaff: 4
Løvsanger - Willow warbler: 4
Grønsisken - Siskin : 5
Nordlig Gråsisken - Common redpoll flammea: 1
Lille gråsisken - Common redpoll cabaret: 2
Hvidsisken - Artic redpoll: 1