Personel; TMJ, TLR, LSS, NDL, MP
Weather; Cold and rainy weather in the morning but dry in the afternoon (6 degrees)
Projects; Great Reed Warbler, Skylark, Ortolan, Starling
After yesterday’s rain the whole team was focussed on going out early in the morning. Though still a bit rainy and a chill cold, we could not stay in the house any longer. Lena and Teresa had put their mind on catching the Great reed warbler today. The tobacco trick seemed to have worked because the canoes were still in place so their day started with paddling on the lakes and checking the reed fields. The Great reed warbler was however not in too much much singing/calling today, so they have to try tomorrow again.
The guys started the day with checking the farmland area for skylarks and yellowhammers. Because they did not wanted to disturb the birds while doing their survey on this (still) rainy morning, they decided to take the car today (how convienent!). They’re almost done with determining the different territories and probably we’ll be able to start the next phase of the skylark-yellowhammer project, meaning studying the individuals behaviour and try to locate the nest.
After this morning activity, the the team returned to the station to get everything in place for the meeting with the people from the ‘Skylark-Yellowhammer project’. We discussed about the way to locate nests, the way to take blood samples, and other practical issues. Afterwards we visited a few fields together with farmers who are also involved in the project. A very interesting and giving day which made us even more eager to
proceed with our field work.
In the afternoon we treated ourselves with some easy birding. Last day’s rainfall flooded a lot of meadows and a lot of birds were on the shallow waters...realy nice!
NDL