Ringmærkning:

Trækket på Odden: Due to quite strong southerly wind, we chose an observation spot behind the house. This makes it the fourth spot I tried, always depending on wind conditions and main migrating species. Today, the majority of migrants came from the order Anatiformes, the "duck shapes". We had a lot of ducks migrating along the coast and above our heads on their way south. As there were almost no other birds, quickly a competition started which species would get the highest count: The five hour race of Gedser. After just a short time, we were already pretty sure, which species would be the winner - the Common Scoters (Melanitta nigra). They came in a constant stream of flocks, at times over a hundred strong. In the end, they held a solid first place at 2452 birds.

More interesting was the race for the second and third place. Both Green-winged Teals (Anas crecca) and Eurasian Wigeons (Mareca penelope) made their best effort and arrived in big flocks. Interestingly, ou could often tell the main species simply from the location of the flock. Teals migrated close to the water's surface, Wigeons flew further above and also often over land. But back to the race: The Teals were the first to reach the magic milestone of 1000 and were in the lead most of the time. As if they knew about our competition tough, the wigeons gave everything and managed to get several quite big flocks in the last few minutes. Thus, it was a very close-fought competition from which the Wigeons came out victorious by a slim margin (1541 to 1523). 

Picture
Ducks

Other notable participants in this race, though completely without a winning chance, included some Velvet Scoters (Melanitta fusca), trying to join the Common Scoters and win like this, several Black-throated Divers (Gavia arctica), a trio of Great Egrets (Ardea alba) and an Arctic Skua (Stercorarius parasiticus). Matching today's catch at the station, we also had the highest number of Red-breasted Mergansers (Mergus serrator) yet. One species was just holding back. In a few weeks time, the whole competition would have easily been won by the Common Eiders (Somateria molissima). The 67 bird that came by today were just warming up.

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Velvet Scoters or Eiders 

Final results: 
1. place: Common Scoters (Melanitta nigra)
2. place: Eurasian Wigeon (Mareca penelope)
3. place: Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca)
4. place: Sandwich Tern (Thalasseus sandwichensis)
5. place: Northern Shoveler (Spatula clypeata)

Fugle registreret i standardtiden: 6515 individer, 46 arter. Tællingen startet 06:13, sluttet klokken 11:13.

Se alle dagens observationer på Gedser Odde i DOFbasen.

På stationen: Hannah Schmidt, Storm Hauris Borum, Lua Koplin, Ole Friis Larsen, Marek Ebert