Rein costs us deer

The original forecast proved inaccurate because when the alarms went at 03.30 it was raining steadily outside--'set alarms for 7' was a welcome group decision. We actually woke earlier and were opening nets at 07.00 but on/off showers meant we didn't really get going till about 9am. This cut down the catch significantly--which perhaps wasn't such a bad thing as we had a planned visit from the delightful pupils of Vestre Jakobsvelt school who had done quite a bit of preparatory work and knew lots of the English names of birds--and things about the ringing process. We also had visits from our Dutch friends, a couple from Finland, and Lee/Bernadette and Lindsey/Keith from England.
K and L are trainees so we got them involved and Keith in particular got a few cool ringing 'ticks' towards his training log.
The main birding issue of the day was a short pulse of Meadow Pipit passage resulting in 89 ringed. Despite the poor weather we still managed a very creditable 202 new birds plus a Reed Bunting retrap--probably from one of the two previous years We have now been here a week, and have ringed 1716 birds of 31 species, and have added 4 new species to the Nesseby list--Blue Tit, Siberian Tit, Bullfinch and of course Barred Warbler. Things are going well--but we have not yet experienced the mass, sustained movement of birds that we had last year--but we still have another 6 days......

Col holding court with the pupils.

The kids from Vestre school really got involved with the process.

Finally-apologies for the pun in the title.....

Please see Charlie's blog for further details http://varangerringing.blogspot.co.uk