Ringmærkningen: No possibilty to ring with this strong wind this morning... But the nice species we saw yesterday afternoon are still in the garden today, so there is hope for tomorrow. In addition, we heard the first the Lesser withethroat (Gærdesanger) of the year, soon in the nets !

Trækket på Odden: After some nice days off (thanks again Louis), I headed to the tip with Olga, who will participate to the migration counting for a few days. As the forecast had predicted, the wind was blowing very strongly, so we sought shelter near the building’s walls. I took advantage of the quiet first hour to tell Olga everything relevant information about migration I could think of, and we were able to look at the most common species here together to start getting to know them. After an hour and only a few birds, we were joined by Theophile and Mathilde, both craving a bit of action and a chance to burn off their excess energy due to the slow ringing of the past few days.

With all this energy, and the sun sometimes shining through the clouds, we were in a joyful and a bit silly mood. As the biggest flock seen today was of the 500 local Golden plovers (Hjejle), we eventually didn’t see many migrating birds... but still got lucky with some of this morning sighting. First of all, it seems that the Long-tailed ducks (Havlit) were not so bothered by the strong front-facing wind and the high waves, as they kept coming all morning long to eventually add up to 45 individuals, this spring’s highest number so far.

Théophile kept going back and forth, braving the wind to observe the birds flying closest to the shore, before returning to tell us which species he’d spotted from his vantage point. That’s how, at one point, he suddenly jumped to his feet and shouted “Sternes naines !!” (which is the French name for Little terns in English, Dværgterne in Danish). Funnily enough, a French visitor arrived at the exact same moment, delighted to bump into some fellow frenchies and to get to see the terns coming closer. The Little Terns were not the only unusual small water bird we saw today, as we also spotted three Little gulls (Dværgmåge) flying southwards, nor the only bird whose name has been shouted in French, as I had to get everybody attention to the Gannet (Sule, Fou de Bassan in French, in case you were wondering) coming really close to the shore.

One of the two first Little terns of the season ! Foto : Théophile Fontaine

Something about the odd lark?

Se alle dagens observationer ved Gedser Odde i DOFbasen.

Folk på stationen: Cyann Ménard, Mathilde Sif Eiby, Sjoerd van Baal, Théophile Fontaine, Olga Fernandez Enriquez