Getteron Fågelstation, Sweden - 4th & 5th September 2016

4th September
A less windy day that seemed much more promising than the last two days. Bo, Stanley and Martin were here to help and there was a steady steam of birds including a few species that we've not ringed here before. We caught our first Tree Sparrow, Sparrowhawk and Reed Bunting of the trip. There was a steady passage of Meadow Pipit overhead all morning with four caught. We intend to put up an extra net for pipits and catch a few more. We said goodbye to Stanley as he went back to his usual observatory.

In the afternoon we attempted a roost catch. There were only a few Yellow Wagtails in evidence and not a significant number so as to warrant too many more roost catch attempts. It's just Chris and myself tomorrow so we'll see what the day brings.

 Juvenile female Sparrowhawk

 Lesser Whitethroat

 Great Spotted Woodpecker - adult

Meadow Pipit

The observatory house - our home for the month

Cranes coming in at the end of the day

Totals: 124 (24)

Sparrowhawk - 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker - 0 (1)
Meadow Pipit - 4
Wren - 1
Dunnock - 2
Robin - 17 (5)
Redstart - 10 (2)
Sedge Warbler - 6 (3)
Reed Warbler - 29
Lesser Whitethroat - 1
Whitethroat - 6 (1)
Garden Warbler - 13 (3)
Blackcap - 27 (3)
Willow Warbler - 1 (1)
Chiffchaff- 1
Great Tit - 1
Tree Sparrow - 1
Reed Bunting - 1


5th September
There was a mild frost over night. The air soon warmed 'though and by the time other people were up and around there was no sign of the frosty patches that we'd seen before 5am when setting the nets. It was a quieter day than yesterday but we still caught a decent number of birds.

 Juvenile male Chaffinch

 Tree Pipit - adult

 Young male Blackbird

First year male Reed Bunting

By 11am it was very warm with an increasing wind and all the main nets were closed. We tried for Meadow Pipits for a short while, but it wasn't much of a passage day for them and we soon closed the nets.

We had our third attempt at a wagtail roost in the evening and, as the sun sank and the wind dropped, we caught around thirty or so birds.

 Adult female White Wagtail

Juvenile male Blue-headed Wagtail

Totals: 111 (11)

Tree Pipit - 1
Meadow Pipit - 2
Blue-headed Wagtail - 29
White Wagtail - 3
Dunnock - 1
Robin - 9 (1)
Redstart - 4
Blackbird - 1
Reed Warbler - 12 (1)
Lesser Whitethroat - 2
Whitethroat - 1
Garden Warbler - 5 (1)
Blackcap - 26 (8)
Willow Warbler - 3
Chiffchaff- 3
Blue Tit - 3
Great Tit - 2
Chaffinch - 2
Greenfinch - 1
Reed Bunting - 1

Getteron Fågelstation, Sweden - 2nd & 3rd September 2016

After a long drive that started near Heathrow Airport and took us through Holland, Germany, Denmark and part of Sweden, three days and two ferries later, we have finally arrived at Getteron.

http://getteron.com/naturum/english/

We will be here for the whole of September, and take over from Dirk and Maria who ringed here throughout August. They captured over 7200 birds, well above the number expected. Dirk was extremely proactive getting up at 3am to put on various tape players around the site, and then going back to bed. They also had a period of prolonged easterlies that without doubt also helped. But, the totals would have probably been lower without the effort of getting up to put on the tapes. We discussed this, and we will leave the valiant effort Dirk made to get up so early to his visit, and we will remain content with putting the tapes on when we drop the nets, despite the fact we will probaby not match any of their 400+ days, with their best day processing 731 birds, though they did have more average figure days. We do not think such a concerted effort has been previously made with someone getting up to put players on several hours before nets are opened. Hopefully it might give the observatory some encouragement to try and put some permanent speakers wired in to players that can be turned on with a timer, as a number of ringing stations have that as standard.

Some information about Getteron:

2nd September

We had a rather sedate start with Westerly winds rather putting the migrants off from moving on. We had all nets open between 5.30am and 11am but not so many birds, and captured 70 new and 12 recaptured birds. The number of visitors equalled the recaps!

 Adult female Bluethroat

 1st year male Redstart

 Juvenile Spotted Flycatcher

Juvenile Grasshopper Warbler

There are large numbers of Geese present, mostly Greylags and Barnacle Geese, with quite a large number of Canada Geese as well, supported by a large number of Cranes roosting over night. There is the odd White-tailed Eagle about, along with Peregrine and Marsh Harrier, also a mix of common waders passing through.

Total: 70 (12)

Robin - 5 (2)
Bluethroat - 1
Redstart - 4 (1)
Grasshopper Warbler - 0 (1)
Sedge Warbler - 2
Reed Warbler - 12
Whitethroat - 3
Garden Warbler - 7 (3)
Blackcap - 32 (5)
Chiffchaff - 1
Spotted Flycatcher - 1
Blue Tit - 2


3rd September

Overnight was gusty with heavy rain at times, with the morning though clear, dominated by a South-westerly moderate to strong breeze, indicating that potentially we were unlikely to exceed yesterday's total, and more likely have a quieter day. This actually proved to be so with only 51 new birds, with the first Dunnock, Lesser Whitethroat and Willow Warbler of the visit.

In addition, on the marsh two neck-colour ringed Canada Geese were found, one BXB and the other BYH. The details for BXB are ringed on 1/7/2014 at Weidanklann, Den Bosch and BYH ringed on 10/7/2014 at Melissestratt, Den Bosch. The only other sightings for either of these two Geese are in 2015 and 2016 respectively, from Holland.

 Neck collared BYH Canada Goose from Holland

Both BYH and BXB 

Barnacle Geese - despite looking no colour rings so far

Total: 51 (10)

Dunnock - 1
Robin - 4
Redstart - 2 (3)
Sedge Warbler -3
Reed Warbler -8
Lesser Whitethroat - 1
Whitethroat - 3
Garden Warbler - 3 (4)
Blackcap - 23 (1)
Willow Warbler - 1
Chiffchaff - 1
Blue Tit - 1
Great Tit - 0 (2)

 

Barnacles coming into roost

Sunset over Getteron