31st May 2015
Staff: DWE, JMY, MBR, EKP, TMJ
Weather: Very windy
Projects: Skylarks, Wetland survey, Ortolan bunting, Great reed warbler, Starlings.
This morning MBR and TMJ of the Great Reed warbler went to Nyängen and found a new female there. This means nest-searching soon. In Aslasjön they were able to confirm a new male and they will keep an eye on that territory.
DWE did his part of the wetland survey. Besides the usual list of species he found a Little ringed plover. Furthermore he discovered nearby the Ormskarrat platform 5 Little gulls sitting on nests on the closest island and we strongly assume there's more but just not visible.
JMY and EKP spent their morning in cold wet fields, surveying their skylark-plots in hay and springcorn one last time as we expect the first hay-harvest next week.
The late afternoon and noon was dominated by the meeting of the board, reporting the status of the ongoing projects and debating about what needs to be done next. JMY and EKP went out to look out for the newest Ortolan bunting female in Ängfallet to confirm our 99% guess that she is really there. Unfortunately neither she nor her husband were visible, somewhere hiding of cold and windy weather probably.
Afterwards DWE, MBR and EKP drove out to find the eldest of the recently hatched Lapwing-chicks to ring them. All in all they managed to find three chicks but only two of them could be ringed, the third fluffy ball was still too small – but there will be some more soon, the Lapwings are working on that, as far as we could see.
In the evening we spend time on office work and as the sun was finally coming out, we used the time to ring some of the birds in the nestboxes around the observatory. DWE ringed the last three Starling chicks for the Starling project, because they had been too small to receive the “ring for life” some days ago. Afterwards he and MBR managed to ring our neighbours, the three nuthatch-chicks that live very close to the house.
EKP