Ringmærkningen: Today marks the first out of nine days I (Alba) will be staying at Gedser Bird Station to help with the ringing, and the birds greeted me very nicely by showing up in large numbers in the nets. 

The only other time I've ringed at Gedser Bird Station was two weeks in August 2025, where there was an overall smaller number of birds caught during standard time, as well as a completely different variety of species. At that time, we mostly had long-distance migrants, such as Blackcaps (Munk) and some different warblers, that usually begin migrating rather early, and we rarely caught much more than 40 birds during standard time. Now, the garden is overrun with Robins (Rødhals) and Chiffchaffs (Gransanger), and we were kept quite busy through most of the morning with a total of 88 birds in the nets, distributed over 77 new birds and 11 recaptures. We are, however, beginning to see some of the long-distance migrants returning, with today giving us the first captured Blackcap (Munk) of the season, as well as a sighting of a Common redstart (Rødstjert) in the garden.

As mentioned, ringing at different times of year gives different species, and just today I've already added two new species to my ringing list, those being the Reed bunting (Rørspurv) and the Greenfinch (Grønirisk), as well as gained some more experience with ageing birds of the other species we caught today. There are still a lot of species that are common at this time pf year that I don't have much experience with yet, so I'm especially hoping to catch more of those over the following week. 

We also recaptured the Black redstart (Husrødstjert) from yesterday, so it will be interesting to see how long she sticks around, and how many more times we can recapture her during that time. 

Following is an overview of the different captured birds of the day:

Trækket på Odden: Today was my (Mathilde's) first day migration counting, so I was very happy Cyann and Louis were there to share their knowledge. We were blessed with no wind, but still some frost and low mist. With almost no clouds higher in the sky, the sun luckily offered some nice one-sided heating the rest of the morning, as it rose further and further in the horizon.

The sunrise this morning. Foto: Mathilde Sif Eiby / GFU

It was a great day for a beginner counter like me, both weatherwise and with a decent amount of Eiders (Ederfugle) to count, even though their migration seems to have peaked and slowed down by now. We counted 1420 Eiders in a total of 1833 birds this morning.

Cyann and I (Mathilde) dressed according to the weather - cold and sunny. Foto: Mathilde Sif Eiby / GFU

The highlights of the day was the Fieldfare (Sjagger) in the early morning, a good flock of Curlews (Storspove), the Wheatear (Stenpikker) dodging the farmer's truck, and lastly the two Barn Swallows (Landsvaler), that showed up just before we left.

The Wheatear (Stenpikker) when it was first spotted in a branch on the edge of the cliff. Foto: Mathilde Sif Eiby / GFU

On our way back we ran into our local Brent Goose (Knortegås), that we named Gus Brendan, who's been recovering from an injury in his left leg, for over a week now, but is using his time here limping around eating and shitting all over the field. He still flies when we get too close, so we're still hoping he'll get well enough to reunite with his comrades on day. 

Gus Brendan - our local Brent Goose (Knortegås), who's been living in our field since last week. Fotos: Mathilde Sif Eiby / GFU

Se alle dagens observationer ved Gedser Odde i DOFbasen.

Folk på stationen: Cyann Ménard, Mathilde Sif Eiby, Sjoerd van Baal, Théophile Fontaine, Louis A. Hansen, Alba Maria Holmberg