This morning, there was a fade wind! At least! It also rained at 5.30am but all the weatherforecsts were saying it will stop at 6 and so it did.

I was expecting this morning to be very good, but it was a morning below average in the end, with 19 new birds ringed. The highlight of the day was certainly this first willow warbler for the year, caught next to a usual chiffchaff. It was about time!!! Here are one picture of each!

I also went to Bøto in the afternoon. Most of the geese already have their chicks! There were quite a lot of passerines gathering in bushes at the end of the day, so let's cross fingers for tomorrow!

Birds ringed today:
Jernspurv - dunnock: 7
Rødhals - Robin: 6
Solsort - Blackbird: 1
Sangdrossel - Song trush: 1
Gransanger - chiffchaff: 2
Løvsanger - Willow warbler: 1
Bogfinke - Chaffinch: 1

All the weather forecasts agreed this morning: it was going to rain! And it did! But when I woke up, it was very quiet and not raining yet so I gave it a try and open some nets. Half an hour later, I had to close with a slight rain starting.

I tried again to open for about 1 h in the afternoon but it was leading nowhere with no birds in the nets and finally, I joined Gert at the tip to do some seawatch. Even there, there was not much going on, but we saw sandwich terns, some flocks of eider, brent geeses and black backed gull. The light was nice though.

Today was on of these days where you don't know what to do with the nets! I started opening and it started raining. I waited a little bit, then opened more nets but every time I was opening one, guts of wind were making me change my mind. In the end, about 2/3 of the nets were opened and the weather quite settled, with still important guts.
It was therefore a slow morning again with only 17 new birds ringed. The bird of the day was definitely this meadow pipit which got caught after standard!

Another thing to notice is that I heard the serin singing again, as we did yesterday.

Birds ringed today:
Engpiber - Meadow pipit:1
Jernspurv - dunnock: 6
Rødhals - Robin: 1
Sangdrossel - Song trush: 1
Gransanger - chiffchaff: 4
Bogfinke - Chaffinch: 2
Grønirisk - greenfinch:1
Rørspurv - Reed bunting: 1

Today, we were 3 people to open the nets, and we decide to open quite a few. Despite the strong wind and the clouds, it never really rained and we succeeded in getting 24 new birds.

Among the birds, the best one was definitely the new firecrest which means we reached 41 firecrests! 3 more, please!

Another noticeable thing is that, uncommonly, the most numerous birds of the day were the chaffinches, with 8 new birds of this species in the net!

We also got two retraps of dunnocks which have been ringed last autumn.

Birds ringed today:

Jernspurv - dunnock: 5
Rødhals - Robin: 1
Solsort - Blackbird: 1
Gransanger - chiffchaff: 2
Rødtoppet fuglekong - firecrest: 1
Bogfinke - Chaffinch: 8
Grønirisk - greenfinch:1
Grønsiskin - Siskin: 5

It was raining at 5 o' clock this morning and I delayed the opening of the nets. In the end, I only had several of them open for a couple of hours, but the wind was still quite strong and rain kept on stopping and starting. So, in the end, I only had 3 birds this morning and they were all retraps!
More people are coming in the next days, so hopefully, they'll bring some birds!

I tried opening nets at the usual hour this morning, but it was so windy that I decided to postpone a little bit to try to get standard datas.
In the end, I succedeed in having 11 nets open, but the wind made them to easy to see and I had only 10 birds in 5h! Among them, only 5 new birds and the 5 others were retraps.
At sea, migration was still going on with a few flocks of eider, some sandwich terns and red -breasted mergansers. The first swallow has also been spotted today over a field.

Birds ringed today:
Gærdesmutte- Wren: 1
Jernspurv - dunnock: 2
Rødhals - Robin: 1
Bogfinke - Chaffinch: 1

The wind was already blowing when I started opening the nets this morning. Most of them could be opened, but I had soon to close a few because the wind increased through all morning.
I barely was able to keep 6 nets open until the end of standard period, and there were only a few birds trapped anyway.
Among the retraps, there was a really good looking blackbird male born in 2015 that I had already trapped a few days ago, and that will be the picture for today!

Bird ringed today:
Gærdesmutte- Wren: 1
Jernspurv - dunnock: 1
Rødhals - Robin: 5
Gransanger - chiffchaff: 1
Bogfinke - Chaffinch: 1

Today in early morning, the temperature was not so cold but there was still a bit of wind and some nets could not be open. As I was finishing opening nets, the fog came up and the few blackbirds and robins which had started singing went silent. The fog stayed until mid-morning, then the sun showed up and we had a great spring day. The wind was supposed to increase in the afternoon but it didn't and nets were open until 1pm.

Despite these conditions, there were not so many birds around and only 36 new birds were ringed today. In the same time, 21 birds ringed mainly the previous day have been retrapped, showing that a good amount of birds have not moved on. A linnet was the last bird caught today. This is the third one for this sprin. And last but not least, the only siskin that I caught today was a female and it was the first bird with a clear breeding patch.

Birds ringed today:
Gærdesmutte- Wren: 3
Jernspurv - dunnock: 8
Rødhals - Robin: 14
Solsort - Blackbird: 1
Sangdrossel - song trush: 1
Vindrossel - redwing:1
Gransanger - chiffchaff: 4
Bogfinke - Chaffinch: 2
Grønsiskin - Siskin: 1
Tornirisk - Linnet: 1

This morning was grey, windy, foggy and a slight rain started as I opened the first nets! I decided to postpone the opening of more nets and in the end, most of the nets were open, but only at 6.15.
Hopefully, even with this depressing weather, the first round improved the day with the first sparrowhawk of the year in the net!
This young male was caught very low in the net.

The second black redstart was also trapped today.
And last but not least, I trapped a new firecrest ( and no goldcrest!). Only 4 left before we beat spring record!

Except for these, it was in fact a really quiet morning again, with only 17 birds ringed.

Birds ringed today:
Spurvhøg - Sparrowhwak: 1
Gærdesmutte- Wren: 3
Jernspurv - dunnock: 7
Rødhals - Robin: 1
Husrødstjert - Black redstart: 1
Gransanger - chiffchaff: 3
Rødtoppet fuglekonge - Firecrest: 1

Before doing the blog for today, I wanted to attract your attention on the datas of March!

After some investigations, I am happy to tell you that this March 2017 holds the record of number of birds ringed compares to the same month of all years!

We ringed 1174 birds last month! The second best march was in 2014 with 925 birds ringed! Funny fact: 2014 was the year I was also there in March. So now, I have proofs that I definitely attract the birds! ;)

Unsurprinsingly, siskins are the species we ringed the most with 326 birds ringed in march.

Then come the Robins with 191 birds ringed.

And finally, golcrests, with 138 individuals ringed in march.

And of course, this story is to be continued....