Det er sådan (bl.a.), at fuglestationen/erne skal overleve fremover: Det nye budget for fuglestationerne er netop blevet konfirmeret på det nyligt afholdte REP-møde, og det fremgår heraf, at stationerne skal klare en ret pæn selvfinanciering fremadrettet, også selvom vi tilsyneladende får mere udbetalt fra "Store DOF" :-).

 -   -   -   skulle hilse og sige, at sådan har vi forresten altid gjort!

 -   -   -   så lidt af dagens arbejde bestod i:

1)   Sælge ud af arvegodset: (Forskellige fuglebøger og et par udstoppede fugle)

2)   Ud og finde noget lort! Her er forklaringen: Fuglestationen har gennem de senere år været med i forskellige sygdomsundersøgelser som f.eks. salmonella, WestNileVirus og flåtbårne sygdomme. En del af årene har vi desuden involveret os i at tage ekskrementprøver af de rovfugle (mest spurvehøg), som vi har taget i nettene, men det har ikke givet mere end cirka 40 i år, hvor vi andre år har været over de 100!

Så vi stod og manglede noget at tage prøver af, og museet opfordrede os til at få prøver af bl.a. andefugle og måger. Det er ikke noget vi fanger ret meget af, så metoden er at f.eks. at finde en flok bramgæs (ganske let!), liste ind hvor de har stået og tage en lille lorteprøve op i et sterilt glas med speciel væske og sende det ind til Seruminstituttet sammen med et udfyldt EXCEL-ark plus et andet skema, helst dagen efter.

   Fuglestationen får så efterfølgende udbetalt udlagt porto og et beløb pr. prøve som tak for indsatsen. Derfor er det vigtigt med forskellige måder at skrabe penge ind til fuglestationerne - I kender ordsproget: Mange bække små - osv!

   Dagens AIV-prøver af stormmåge (Common Gull)

   Target-arterne er udover rovfugle, måger og andefugle desuden enkelte vadefuglearter, duer og kragefugle. Forleden dag fandt jeg således en lokal flok råger, der fouragerede i kanten af en stubmark, lige ved Gedser Gl. Landevej: Det gav 8 prøver, som blev sendt i torsdags, og i dag var der held igen med en ren flok stormmåger, hvilket resulterede i hele 15 prøver.

   De sidste 4 prøver skal gemmes til en flok sangsvaner, og jeg skal nok finde dem!

   Så selvom sæsonen med ringmærkning er slut for denne gang (i hvert fald med Ramón og Gail), så er der masser at lave. Jeg kan desuden nævne:

Styregruppemøde i morgen søndag,

På mandag kommer der en fotograf, der skal have nogle optagelser i kassen af hvordan ringmærkning foregår - til brug for en lille film om det DOF står for. Vi må håbe, at der er en fugl eller to at fange.

   Senere i næste uge skal alle net tages ind for vinteren, og der skal holdes besigtigelse af haven sammen med folk fra Landvindingslavet med henblik på topkapning af træer og buske.

Today was our last day in Gedser Fuglestation. We have had a great time here. We have learnt and enjoyed a lot. Gail and I are very happy that we have had the opportunity to meet so many people and been able to learn something from all of them.

Gedser Fuglestation is a great place and I hope it will continue for many many years.

I want to say special thanks to Anton for telling me about the place and then spending the first month here with me teaching me all the time, to Jesper for helping me ageing many birds from pictures, to Gert for fixing all the things that breaks and to Hans for being such a good boss.

We were also ringing today, but not for very long because we had to get ready to leave.

Here are the data of today,

Thanks again for everything!

We hope to see you all of you soon and best wishes!

Ramón and Gail.

Today was our penultimate day of ringing here at Gedser, and it has been another quiet one. We opened the nets before sunrise as per usual, and felt quite optimistic because it sounded like there were some birds in the garden. However, despite keeping the nets open for most of the day we only caught 6 new birds. One of those was a beautiful male fieldfare though, so it’s not all bad!

We’ve spent the rest of the day fixing a few nets, cleaning the house and starting to pack. We’ve had a great time here at Gedser, and I’ve certainly learned a lot. Hopefully we’ll be back another time!

Cheers,

Gail

Despite a drizzly morning we managed to open the nets for a few hours, doing constant rounds so that none of the birds we caught stayed in the net for too long. There was a bit more activity in the garden than over the last few weeks, and we caught a few more birds as a result. We managed to attract a small flock of grønsiskin to one of the high nets by playing their calls from a speaker, and also caught a number of solsort, rødhals and fuglekonge.

The rain intensified before midday so we decided to call it a day. We finally got around to taking down the very old pond nets and packing them away for the winter.

The nights are certainly drawing in now!

Cheers,

Gail

Today was too windy in the garden for ringing, so we have been doing other errands at the station. Nothing else bird related worth mentioning.

That´s all for today.

Best wishes,

Ramón.

Another day with very few birds in the nets, despite lovely weather. The first round saw the most action, where we caught the majority of today’s birds, including a very attractive kværkefinke (brambling). After that we were down to 2 or fewer birds per round, and by midday there was nothing flying in the garden at all so we decided to close the nets and use the afternoon for more productive pursuits.

The wind is up again tonight so no owl hunting, and it looks like we will be hit with some impressive winds tomorrow so it seems unlikely that we will open any nets.

Cheers,

Gail

Today we had really good weather for ringing and we were playing sounds with the speakers since before the first round, but we did not catch many birds or anything unusual today.

After closing the nets at 15:50, we had a couple of hours of nets closed and then we opened again for owls. We were not lucky either and we have just closed all the nets again because it´s getting very windy in the garden.

We will keep trying tomorrow again with sounds and with everything we have, but if there are no birds, there is nothing that we can do.

I hope you had a good day,

The numbers of the day:

Best,

Ramón.

The wind died out completely overnight and we were able to open all the nets this morning. It was strangely warm in fact! We only got a brief respite from the weather as it started to drizzle around 10am, meaning that we only got a few hours of ringing in. In that time we got more birds than over the previous few days, but still not so many… We played sounds in an attempt to lure a flock of siskin or redpolls down into the garden, but it didn’t work in the short time we had the nets open. Maybe another day it will.

We didn’t get any unusual birds – just a smattering of the usuals. After lunch I walked to Gedser for some supplies and discovered that the wind had come back in full force – and then some! It is insanely windy here at the moment! We can hear it howling around the house, and we are very glad to be cozy inside with the fire going. Hopefully it’ll die down enough for us to open nets again in the morning.

We didn’t take any photos today, but the data are below.

Cheers,

Gail

Today it was not possible for us to open the nets. We woke up at 06:30 am to check the garden but it was incredibly windy, then every 30 minutes we checked again to see if we would be able to open the nets, but in the end we could not. There were gusts between 17 - 15 m/s all the morning, and besides that, in all our rounds around the garden we only heard a few blackbirds and the usual tree sparrows.

So far, in terms of numbers, we have only ringed 387 birds in 15 days of November, and almost every day after standard we have tried with several speakers to lure them into the nets. So far no luck, but we are not giving up.

We will try tomorrow again!

I hope you had a good day,

Best,

Ramón.

I think it’s safe to say that the ringing season is over, after another in a long series of very quiet days. It was a beautiful autumnal day though, and the lack of bird activity meant we could go for a lovely run in the sun – it was just about warm enough for shorts and t-shirt!

I think female solsort (blackbirds) are very underappreciated. They have a really stunning plumage.

Nothing else of note has happened today, so I’ll keep it brief - the data speaks for itself.

Cheers!

Gail