Back to sunny Blackpool

Hello Bloggers! Sorry I haven’t blogged recently, I've been very busy settling back in at home, catching up with family and friends and looking for employment. When I got home I was very excited to see that my Anatomy and Physiology books had arrived, they are amazing! They are by Ross & Wilson and the best thing is the main book has a companion Colouring/Workbook with detailed drawings for you to label etc. For anyone out there who is planning on studying anything within the Medical profession I definitely recommend these.

So it's very strange being back at home, everything is very hectic and busy here. Lots of rushing around and I haven't seen many exciting birds. My house looks out onto a big field that recently flooded due to heavy rain for many weeks, it's starting to look quite like a mini marsh out there. I've seen Ducks, Swans and Gulls landing there. Quite a nice change from the usual dog walkers.

Today I have a job interview at a local care home, I'm trying to build up experience to help me achieve my main career goals. So wish me luck guys!

If anybody else can recommend any good Human anatomy and physiology study material, It would be great to hear about it!

I'm not going to blog everyday because I think it will become slightly boring as I don't really have much to blog about at the moment like I did while I was away.

Enjoy blogging,

Chow!

 

Auf Wiedersehen summer.

What a Great way to spend your 20th Birthday, in Denmark with the Baltic sea at the bottom of your garden, ringing birds. Here's what I did for my birthday last night/today. Well...last night we held an Owl event for local people interested in Owls and other Birds. They came down and listened to a talk, drank tea and coffee and ate lots of homemade cake. We set up a few nets around the garden in hope that we would catch either Tengmalm's or Long-eared Owls that we could show to the group. A Short-Eared owl had also been seen during the day yesterday so this was also on our wish list for the night. In total we caught 5 Tengmalm's Owls, one was a recapture from Stockholm,Sweden. All in all the night was a great success and everyone really enjoyed themselves. A bonus was that we had plenty of cake left over for us!

In Total we caught 77 Birds today/last night.

The Highlights were, 28 Long-Tailed Tits and 1 Waxwing. Possibly 2 of my Favourite Birds!

Waxwing

Long-Tailed Tits

Tomorrow I will begin my journey back to the UK, where I will work and begin to study next spring. I've had an incredible year and seen some beautiful birds and places. I would like to thank everyone for making this happen, it's been amazing and I have learnt so many new things and met some really nice people. But most importantly I would like to thank Craig for providing me with these amazing opportunities, teaching me and keeping me smiling every day, one day in the future he will make a fantastic bird ringing tutor, so look out for him! All the best to everyone I have met in Sweden and Denmark, have a Fantastic Christmas and New-Year. I will miss you but one day...I'll be back ;)

My first Sparrowhawk

Here at Gedser we catch quite a few Sparrowhawks,  I have always been quite nervous about extracting them from the nets and have usually had to ask for assistance, I mean they do have needle sharp claws and everything! Well during a net round today i saw a big Adult Female Sparrowhawk in a net, and i just thought to myself, I'm going to extract her! And YES i did it, i managed without any problems. She was a blooming stunner too!

However the second time i tried to extract another Sparrowhawk today, i wasn't so lucky, it managed to grab my hand with it's claws! Next time though :)

Hooting around.

Yesterday tea time Me,Craig and the others went to eat at the local pub on the harbor, the food was quite nice, you can't go wrong with a good fish and chips. When we came out we saw a Short-Eared Owl hunting in the harbor, so we took a quick decision to try and catch owls during the night. Craig set the nets up straight away. And what a success it was. We ringed/measured 1 Long-Eared owl and 3 Tengmalm's Owls. They were so incredibly beautiful, seeing owls in captivity has nothing on being able to see them from the wild. Our two friends will join us today for one night, so we will try for owls again tonight also. Here are some pictures of the owls, the light isn't perfect unfortunately but the sheer beauty of the Owls stands out.

Long-Eared Owl, Wing shot.

Long-Eared Owel

Tengmalm's Owl

Blue Carpet

Today was the day, the day the Blue Tits finally arrived in big numbers, this time we were prepared, we had a few more pairs of hands to help us. The garden was full of them, you could hear them everywhere. A blue carpet swallowing up the garden. In total today we ringed 815 birds. 657 of these birds were Blue Tits. Other birds ringed today were, 103 Goldcrest, 21 Great Tit, 7 Chiffchaff, 6 Robin, 3 Chaffinch, 3 Siskin, 2 Wren, 2 Blackbird, 2 Song Thrush and singles of Sparrowhawk, House Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Brambling, Redpoll and Bullfinch.

Some of the Birds bagged up ready to be Ringed/Measured

Tonight we will also try for Tengmalm's Owls, hopefully there will soon be a blog to follow with pictures of the owls that we caught.

I'm feeling Blue today.

This morning we set up the nets around the garden as usual, the nets were up by 6:20am and in total we had 13 nets up. The garden seemed quite quiet, and small amounts of birds were being caught. There was wind but not enough to effect the ringing or cause us to have to close any nets. At around lunchtime we began to hear the lovely, calm, loving Blue Tits. We closed some nets and prepared for them to take over the garden, we ended up extracting/ringing Blue Tits until 3:00pm, it had been a few weeks since we had caught this many Blue Tits and I had sure forgotten how much my hands hurt afterwards. In total we caught 212 Blue Tits and many flew straight over the garden. All in all it was quite a nice day, and it was nice to see that sun had finally come out also. Other birds ringed today were, 18 Great Tit, 4 Goldcrest, 3 Chiffchaff, 3 Sparrowhawk, 3 Wren, 2 Robins, 2 Coal Tits and singles of Dunnock, Redwing, Blackcap, Chaffinch and Redpoll. We are expecting to catch many Blue Tits tomorrow also.

Below is a picture of one of the Blue Tits.

We also update Gedser's blog on a daily basis, the link for this is below.

http://gedserfuglestation.blogspot.dk/

Summer in Sweden and Denmark 2012

On the 14th June, I set off on my Journey to Sweden where I was going to spend the majority of my Summer. I was going to work at Kvismaren Bird Observatory and Nature Reserve. Although I had already worked there for 5 weeks the previous year. I was still very nervous.When I arrived at Kvismaren, it felt great to be back! No traffic, no rushing around in crowds of busy people, not many buildings, just the pure beauty of the natural surroundings. 

Here I was going to work as an Assistant during the Bird ringing season. We tag birds and take measurements from them such as, Wing length, weight, how much fat they have etc. While doing this we also help to maintain the Nature reserve, by strimming and cutting grass, building foot paths, putting up bird boxes and any other small tasks that may have needed to be done. 

After spending 4 months in Sweden I then set off to work at another Bird Observatory, this time it was in Denmark, Gedser. The garden is one of the first pieces of land birds see when coming in from the sea, so it is often full of lots of lovely birds twittering and tweeting away. 

I also met some great people and really enjoyed meeting those again that i met last year, thank you to everyone at Kvismaren and Gedser for making my summer a great one! 

I will be leaving Gedser at the end of October and it will soon be time for me to start knuckling down with my Studying/Training to become a Funeral Director/Embalmer. 


Here are some of my favourite pictures to sum up what I have been doing this summer, I hope you enjoy them just as much as I do... 

Sweden, Kvismaren 

Denmark, Gedser 

Photos: Heather McGinty and Craig Brookes