Back to school for the old fart-and the shape of things to come?

Col had a short break from ringing this morning to call in at Varangerbotn school to give a short presentation to pupils from grades 5-8 with their teachers in preparation for their visit to our ringing site on Monday. It was a very enjoyable session and we are looking forward to hosting them next week. Tomorrow we have a visit from the school at Vestre Jakobselv. We hope it is as enjoyable as the visit we had from them last year.

Back to today's ringing. We gave ourselves a long lie in until 3.30 today and arrived on  site at 4.30. It was a balmy 9 centigrade, thick cloud and still--with absolutely no birds around. However, as the cloud lifted, and a very gentle easterly breeze got up, birds started moving--especially Meadow Pipits, Reed Buntings and Lapland Buntings. We suspected birds were dropping into the nets when Charlie didn't get back from the 'marsh' site as quickly as usual. The 'new' boys had their first taste of a decent movement with a big catch, although it did not last as long as we would have hoped. However it did result in 135 Mipits, 57 Reebus and 11 Lapland Bunts. There was a steady catch rate until about 13.00 when we called it a day having ringed 323 new birds--notably 5 Sedge Warblers, 41 Willow Warblers, and another 27 Bluethroats taking us to 216 of this species so far. A couple of interesting points were that there was a movement of Greenfinches resulting in 10 new birds caught, with lots around. Finally it was again clear that the migration movements mentioned above always seem to take place INTO the wind. This means that the birds are going the 'wrong' way i.e. north east at this time of year. Why?
We also resurrected the minigoland walk-in trap for waders which was quite successful with a new species caught in the form of 2 delightful Curlew Sandpipers--another new species for Colin H and Charlie.
Picture of Curlew Sandpiper and Dunlin, the Dunlin is on the right:-

Another helpful looking forecast for tomorrow--what will it bring??

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