Ringmærkningen: I morges åbnede Søren og jeg nettene med det røde skær fra den kommende solopgang mod øst, og den næsten fulde måne på vej ned mod vest. Det blev til en god portion fugle fra morgenstunden, og over halvdelen Jernspurve (Dunnock), hvoraf en af dem havde haft ring på hele vejen fra Belgien.

Hen mod slutningen fik vi endda ringmærket sæsonens første Hvide Vipstjert (White Wagtail), som blev den 15. art på min ringmærkerliste. 

En voksen herre - dagens Hvide Vipstjert (White Wagtail)          Foto: Mathilde Sif Eiby / GFU

Trækket på Odden: Easter holiday seems to have come early for the birds at Gedser Odde this year, as many birds appeared to have taken a break from migrating today. Many birds, such as mute swans (Knopsvane) and Commmon Scoters (Sortand), were seen swimming around at the shoreline or hanging around at the sandbank out at sea, but only a few were seen actually migrating. Despite a fairly steady start at the beginning of the morning, migration numbers quickly faltered, as we experienced several prolonged periods without a single spotted migrating bird.

One young second-calendar-year, 2cy, White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons) provided a good view of how the plumage is changing into adult. For the last month, they have clearly had some white on the head, but now black dots are also appearing on the underside. Photo: Ole Friis Larsen/GFU

In total, we ended the day with a total of 2212 counted birds, 1846 of these birds were Eiders (Ederfugl). The trend towards a larger abundance of migrating female Eiders is steadily continuing, with many flocks today having a male-to-female ratio of close to 50/50. Another pleasant sight today was a large, mixed flock made up of 42 Bewick’s Swans (Pibesvane) and 6 Whooper Swans (Sangsvane), which were spotted just in time far out over the horizon.

Despite the rather lackluster number of birds we still had a very enjoyable time out at the point today. The weather was absolutely wonderful and we were in good company all morning.

Se alle dagens observationer ved Gedser Odde i DOFbasen.

Nyt fra stationen: Et kinesisk firma har udvalgt Gedser Fuglestation til at være med til at teste et apparat, som automatisk kan måle, hvilken ring en fugl skal have og montere ringen sikkert om benet på den. Samtidig sendes ringnummeret og andre oplysninger om fuglen direkte i ringmærkernes database. Apparatet kan tage sikre mål af fuglens vinger og andre oplysninger, som ringmærkerne ellers skal tage. Det sker med laserlys, lidt som nogle kender det fra afstandsmålere. Firmaet Lir-pa har bedt os om at teste apparatet, en såkaldt A-BiRD (Automatic Bird Ringing Device) på europæiske trækfugle sammen med andre fuglestationer i Europa, fordi vi er en af de stationer, der ringmærker flest fugle i Nordeuropa.

Folk på stationen: Cyann Ménard, Mathilde Sif Eiby, Sjoerd van Baal, Søren Mygind, Henrik Jørgensen, Ole Friis Larsen