Dagbok SFOS

This morning, I woke up at 2.50 to start opening nets. It was a quiet morning with almost no
wind and a bright sky. We were hoping that after the rain some birds might be around. Unfortunately,
it didn’t happen and the ringing has been very slow today with only 5 bords ringed even though the
nets were open until 5pm for some. 3 willow warblers, 1 icterine warbler and 1 garden warbler were
ringed. It really seems like the migration is over. But let’s see what brings tomorrow since the
conditions seem good with quite a lot of rain predicted in the early morning.

I am on my own again now, Stig, Tommy and Anders having left in the afternoon.

We knew it was going to rain this morning so we tried the nightjar again yesterday but were
unsuccessful. Nets were partly open at 10 and partly at 11 this morning, trying to escape
from the last showers of the day. It was windy the rest of the day and even though the nets
were open until 8pm, only 12 birds were ringed today: 4 willow warblers, 4 spotted flycatcher,
1 robin, 1 icterine warbler, 1 chiffchaff and 1 meadow pipit.

This brings us to 2369 birds ringed this spring.

Some people
must have keep their fingers crossed indeed yesterday, because we caught a
nightjar at 11.15pm! Trine and Jon Peter even saw another one flying over the island
while extracting! So they are around!

These amazing birds are among my favorite in the hand. This one was a male, according to the
white spots it has on the tail and wings.

Even though the all team came to have a good look at it, the nets were open at 3am this
morning and we got 37 birds ringed through the day, which makes it a better day than the rest
of the week. There were 14 willow warblers, 2 chiffchaffs, 2 icterine warblers, 1 lesser whitethroat,
1 robin, 2 spotted flycatchers, 4 pied flycatchers and 1 tree pipit caught and ringed today. A few
of the young greenfinches ringed the previous days are also fooling around and getting retrapped
regularly as well as our traditional trush nightingales.

After all that, the dream team had to go in the early afternoon and I can’t thank them enough
for their enthusiasm, their generosity and all the good moments we had.

The island seemed empty after a week with 6 people, but fortunately, Stig, Anders and Tommy
arrived in the evening.

The weatherforecasts were right this morning and we couldn’t open nets at 3am. The wind was
still very strong and it started raining around 4am. So, we had to watt. In the afternoon, the sky
started clearing up and we tried to open some nets near the house at 2pm, but unfortunately, the
rain forced us to close them again barely one hour later. At 16.45, though the sky seemed more
and more cleared and we started opening 11 nets. These stayed open until 9pm and we still are
trying to catch the nightjar that we saw during one of our round. Keep your fingers cross!

Up to now, 12 birds have been caught today, which is not too bad considering that we have open
nets only for a couple of hours. It is also remarkable that none of them were retraps.

To sum up: 1 willow warbler,1 chiffchaff, 2 icterine warblers, 3 garden warblers, 3 spotted
flycatchers, 1 redstart and a young greenfinch were ringed this afternoon.

The conditions during the night are good for migration so we expect that the birds will move on, but
let’s hope some will still be there tomorrow morning!

Again, we open most of the nets at 3am this morning but it was already windy and there
were few clouds around. These were not really good conditions for ringing and it got worst with
the wind picking up around 11. We closed at 12, with only 7 birds ringed today: 2 willow warblers,
2 chiffchaffs, 2 meadow pipits and 1 young greenfinch.
There wasn’t much activity during the day on the island. Tomorrow wew are expecting some rain
and strong winds but if we manage to open at some point, maybe some birds could be around.

Nets were open at 3am today and it was cloudy with was a really slight breeze. As soon as the
sun rised, the sky cleared up and the wind increased slowly through the day and turned west.

There were few birds in the nets but we got quite excited in the first round this morning
because one of them was, again, a bird wearing a foreign ring! This time, it was a spotted flycatcher
from Italy and the ring looked very new! This brings our retraps from birds ringed abroad to 9! Here
are the details:

3 have been
ringed in Sweden: 1 lesser whitethroat, 1 blackap and 1 robin

1 in Denmark:
a garden warbler

2 in Belgium:
1 willow warbler and 1 meadow pipit;

1 in
Holland: a willow warbler

1 in Portugal:
a willow warbler

And finally
this spotted flycatcher ringed in Italy!

These are very interesting results, helping us to know more about the birds movement and
migration!

Concerning the ringing itself, 19 birds were ringed today: 13 willow warblers, 1 trush
nightingale, 2 lesser whitethroat, 2 garden warblers, and 1 pied flycatcher.

We can only hope that some of these birds will also be retrap somewhere else in the future
and help us understand more about their life history.

Nets were open at 3am today. It was a bit windy but not too much and it seemed very quiet. And
it was. Hopefully, the young greenfinches have grown and were wondering around, kind of saving
the day.

Per Espen and a whole team arrived in the early afternoon, so we kept the nets open until 9pm.

Even so, it was a few birds around and 14 birds were ringed today: 8 greenfinches, 1 linnet,
1 meadow pipit, 1 lesser whitethroat, 1 garden warbler and only 2 willow warblers.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast is predicting some strong winds for the next few days. But
tomorrow seems alright. Lets cross fingers for the week!

It was already windy this morning at 3 when we open and the wind continued to increase until
11am. As a result, not all nets could be open and some nets were closed at 10.30. It also had
the consequence that very few birds were around and even fewer were caught.

24 birds were ringed today: 20 willow warblers, 2 blackcaps, 1 lesser whitethroat and 1
whitethroat, with the nets closed at 2pm.