Flommen variety

It was raining as we were setting up the nets this morning — each drop of rain on the water in Flommen triggered a flash of green light from the bioluminescent plankton, which was still strong today and made the main channel twinkle in the dark. There were also a lot of frogs in the channel today and each time one swam away it left a luminous green trail behind it.

The rain soon stopped and the morning's ringing turned out to be pleasant and varied. Cutest of the lot was this 2+cy Grasshopper Warbler.

Compared to last Thursday's 1cy bird, this adult bird shows heavy wear to the flight feathers. They are, after all, a good 6 or so months old. Adults have a variable post-breeding moult. This bird had moulted the lesser and median coverts, the inner 9 greater coverts, T2 and T3, and A1 and A2. The secondaries, primaries, GC1, primary coverts, T1 and A3 are all old.

It's always a joy to have a Grasshopper Warbler in the hand and to enjoy the finer details that are often so hard to get a good view of in the field.

Continuing the theme of partial post-breeding moults — though this time in a species for which a complete post-breeding moult is the norm — this 3+cy Common Whitethroatwa s near to completing its moult (outer primaries and S6 in final stages of growth) but had left S3–5 unmoulted on both wings. According to Sylvia Warblers, the post-breeding moult is “Usually complete, but not uncommonly interrupted, leaving a variable number of secondaries and, less frequently, primaries unmoulted.”

Title for shittiest bird of the morning went to this 1cy male Mallard, which managed to clear itself out all over Christian, myself, and the ringing hut.

Adding further variety was this 1cy White Wagtail. It's moulted all of the median coverts and two greater coverts, GC8 and 9, but — as is often typical for wagtails — has not moulted GC10.

The moult limit is still visible on the closed wing:

Yesterday morning at Flommen was fairly quiet with a Marsh Warbler being the best of 22 birds. We did the resting bird count in the afternoon at the north end of the peninsula where highlights were 22 Wood Sandpipers, a Merlin, a Garganey, and a Carrion Crow.