Dagbok SFOS

Today
morning was a bit more chilly and much more windy. The wind was North to North East
once more. The first round brought more or less 10 birds, one of them being the first
bluethroat of the year! Then, it was quiet for the rest of the morning. 18 willow warblers,
1 lesser whitethroat, 2 redstarts, 1 redpoll, and the bluethroat made me reached 23 new
birds ringed today.

Even thought it’s not a lot, it is enough to overcome last year total for the season! We
have now ringed 1760 birds this spring against 1750 last year!

Some rain is predicted for the night and the early morning. These might be good conditions
for ringing tomorrow. Let’s wait and see…

There was
still a little bit of high clouds in the early morning, but there
was no wind
today and from 5.30 it was a clear forget-me-not blue sky
and a summer temperature.
It all got back to being very quiet with only
32 birds ringed today. 22 willow
warblers, the rest being 2 lesser
whitethroats, another young greenfinch, 4
redpolls, 1 chiffchaff and
1 redstart and last but not least 1 spotted flycatcher.
It was only the
second individual caught this spring.

At 4 am,
there was no wind and it was partly cloudy. It got more cloudy until 8am and
there
were some birds around. From 8am however, the sun shone and the birds
left once
more, leaving the island much more empty than it felt in the early morning.

Thanks to the 3 first rounds, I reached 127 birds ringed today. It was about
the same amount of willow warblers than yesterday ( and felt like it in the bushes
as well) with 85 of them ringed today, but there was a much nicer diversity on the
side than yesterday. 3 robins, 7 redstarts, 1 fieldfare, 1 blackbird, 3 song trushes,
12 lesser whitethroats, 4 whitethroats, 3 garden warblers, 2 blackcaps, 4 chiffchaffs
and 2 young greenfinches were ringed today.

There was
also a nice diversity on the island in the morning.

The weather
was nice this morning with a bit of clouds and it was around 8 degrees. There was
no wind. Nets were open at 4 am as usual, with a few trushes singing and the
first two rounds have been busy. Then, the sun won, the sky got clear blue, and
the birds left. It was a nice spring day with a warmer temperature until the evening.

98 birds were ringed today. 89 of them were
willow warblers! There were also : 2 chiffchaffs,
2 lesser whitethroat, 1 redstart, 3 robins and an icterine warbler. This brings us
to 1578 birds ringed this spring. Last year, 1750 birds were ringed in the whole spring season.
We are getting there.

Nets were
open just at 4am today, the sky was still partly cloudy but you could already
feel that it would be a sunny day. There was not much wind in the morning but it
increased slowly and then decreased again. 40 birds were ringed today:
26
willow warblers, 1 common redpoll and 3 lesser redpolls,1 blackcap, 5 lesser
whitethroat, 2 redstarts, 1 song trush and the first dunnock since I am here (but
not the first of the season).

The total
amount of birds for this spring is now 1480 birds.

The wind
was strong at 4am and I hesitated about opening the nets. In the end, I decided
to open only the 4 ones by the house, and I think it was the right decision. I
had a couple of small showers in the early morning as well as a more heavy hail.
At 8am, the wind got even stronger and I decided to close. I opened more nets
when the wind dropped and kept them open through all afternoon but there were
few birds around. Today, 1 blackbird, 6 willow warblers, 2 redstarts, 1
redpoll,
1 robin, 2 blackcaps, 1 garden warbler and 1 whitethroat were ringed.

I’ve kept
myself busy by watching the sea in the morning and spotted a white tail eagle
far away.

After
yesterday, today seemed quiet. However, it was not so bad in the morning, there were

still some birds around and the first rounds were rewarding. But from 8 o’clock, it got suddenly
calm: the sun was shining, making nets more visible and the birds had definitely moved on.
A walk on the island confirmed there was still a good amount of birds but there were more in
the Northern tip of the island.

Anyway, the amount of birds ringed today was not bad at all with 85 new bird ringed. Again,
mainly willow warblers but also a few blackcaps(7), whitethroats (3) and lesser whitethroats (5)
and surprisingly more wrens than yesterday (4).

Today included,
we have now reached 1425 birds ringed this year.

Today, some
slight rain was expected in the morning. I opened at 4am
hoping it wouldn’t be
to strong. There was a lot of activity in the bushes,
and with the threathening
weather I decided to open only 11 nets. That
was enough by far! This has been
an outstanding day of ringing and could
have been even better if it wasn’t for
the rain. At one point Terje and
Morten helped me out, but we had to close
because the rain got heavier.
We opened again after lunch, only a few nets, but
they kept us busy.

In the end,
it has been an incredible day for willow warblers.
290 of these little birds
were ringed today. We had quite a lot of species,
and reached 393 birds ringed
today.

Moreover we
had a retrap of a collared dove, not many of them come
to the island.

And last but
not leat, in the late afternoon, I got a retrap of a willow
warbler ringed in Portugal!
Well done, willow!

Here is the
list of the species and numbers ringed today:

willow warbler: 290

Goldcrest:
6

Chiffchaff:14

Lesser
whitethroat: 9

Wren:2

Redstart: 9

Pied flycatchers: 10

Robins: 19

Blackcap:13

Garden
warbler: 5

Whithroat:4

Tree pipit:
2

Icterine
warbler: 3

Chaffinch:1

Songtrush:
3

Blackbird:1

Fieldfare:
1