Monday, August 13, 2007 - Eight days in a birding paradise.
I went to Ottenby Bird Observatory to assist a friend in collecting material (bird lice) for his research. During my eight days stay I got 124 Öland-ticks, 43 hand-ticks, 32 bite-ticks and 11 life-ticks. Among the hand- and bite-ticks Mute Swan, Great Cormorant, Red-Backed Shrike and Whimbrel stand out from the mass. Shrike for it's hell of a bite and the others for sheer size :)
 The light house just south of the observatory by night. The observatory staff dormitories are in
the white house in the front.
Most of the life-ticks were species either breeding in or migrating through Sweden that either won't show up in the Gothenburg area or get there only very seldom or on remote islands. The Black Stork however, hasn't been regularily reproducing in Sweden since around 1950 but visits the southern parts yearly. The first one I saw came over the observatory heading SW and was later seen on the mainland. The second one I saw (less than two hours later) was soaring above farmlands north of the observatory along with a White-tailed Eagle and four Buzzards.
 Very angry Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) at the ringing lab. That bill is evil! :)
The main reason we had for scanning the agricultural fields there and then was the Pacific Plover that was discovered there on August 2 and remained there until the 10th ( I went home 8th). As me and D were busy with lice in the lab when the rest of the staff went by car to look at the plover we had to go up there by bicycle ( a 20 min ride, oh noes! ;)). Took us three trips until we actually found it, on the evening of the 4th, same day as we got the storks. On the way back I life-ticked European Goldfinch, a statistically common bird, but hard to find outside perfect habitats.
 Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) posing in the lab.
The lice gathering deserves some explanation. Different bird species have different lice. Some birds have different lice on head, belly and wings, cormorants have lice in the throat, almost all passerines worldwide share at least one louse species and so on. Collecting and DNA-sequencing lice from a variety of bird species will tell wether the lice on different birds actually are the same species and so on and wether different bird species are related in the way normally percieved.
To get the lice off the bird a collar made of dense fabric is put around the bird's neck and tightened with a drawstring. The bird is then put in a glass jar accompanied by some ether absorbed in a piece of cotton. The collar is stretched to cover the mouth of the jar and a lid with most of it except the screw thread cut away is screwed on in order to secure the collar in place. After 10-20 minutes depending on size the bird is released and the lice it carried with it are hopefully dead and still in the jar. Sometimes the birds managed to pull their heads down into the jar and had to be released due to over exposure to ether. One bird managed to take off with the collar still on (Damn, those Turnstones are sneaky bastards :D). Birds too large (Cormorant, Swan, Oystercatcher, Gulls) or with too dense plumages (Terns) were searched manually.
 Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) under treatment
Everything accounted for, it was a lovely trip and I would really like to go back there and work some time. The normal age for a ringer assistant is around 17 years though, so I'd better learn to ring birds somewhere so I can work as a ringer. They are usually older than 17 :)
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Sunday, August 19, 2007 - Ottenby |
| Posted by Elon |
| Cool. Especially the Black Stork and the Pacific Golden Plover, of course... |
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Sunday, August 19, 2007 - year ticks |
| Posted by Elon again |
| But hey you still doesn't seem to have passed my number of year ticks... strange, for being at Ottenby for such a long time. |
| Permanent Link |
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About Me
26 year old birder from Gothenburg, Sweden.
My goal for 2007 was get above 200 life-ticks. I managed 215 and the goal for 2008 was to get to 250. Right now it looks like I might get to 250 year ticks which is of course even better.
Friends
• gladan
Other birding blogs•Brazilianpioneerbirder
Categories
•Local watching
•Other
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Last ticks
• 266: Leach's Storm-petrel
• 265: Isabelline Shrike
• 264: Sooty Shearwater
• 263: Little Auk
• 262: Snow Bunting
• 261: Yellow-browed Warbler
• 260: Red-throated Pipit
• 259: Hen Harrier
• 258: Sabine's Gull
• 257: Ortolan Bunting
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