For British birdwatchers and ringers of a certain age they may remember a television advert for Danish bacon with the jingle: Danish written all through it; and very tasty bacon it was too.  Today we did not have bacon but we had sausages of the real variety and the avian variety; first the feathered sausages.

Many of the birds caught today had high fat scores, several with fat scores of seven; these little fatties were nicknamed flying sausages.  A particular feathered sausage was a common whitethroat with a fat score of seven and a weight of 21.1g.  This, crudely, means it was carrying seven grams in fat to fuel its migration but the figure is actually quite amazing.  That means it's weight was about fifty percent up on its normal weight.  If this occured in humans in the autum and winter imagine the amount of clothing we'd have to have in our wardrobes; let alone the numerous cardiac health issues we'd have!

Though we had less birds today there was still quality in the catch: another wryneck, a common rosefinch, and finally not one, but two sparrowhawks caught in the nets.  The wryneck and sparrowhawks were much appreciated by a large number of "Friends of Gedser" who gathered here to share a barbeque together.  These people are the unsung heros of places like Gedser Bird Observatory in the numerous voluntary hours they put into maintaining the site, facilities and the general running of the observatory.  And their barbeque included a selection of very tasty, and much appreciated suasages accompanied by a fine selection of salads.

Sparrowhawk

Showing the Sparrowhawk

Ageing the Rosefinch

Not only were two sparrowhawks caught in the net many more were seen migrating over the oberservatory and these were in the company of other raptors, including: buzzard, honez buzzard, osprey, kestrel, red-footed falcon and white-tailed eagle.  In the afternoon we were contacted about an injured juvenile white-tailed eagle; this was collected and taken to a re-hablitation center.

People at the station: Hendrick Jørgensen, Chris Sharp, Daniel Bloche, Esben Hansen, Shav Shay and many Friends of Gedser Bird Observatory.