Nearing the end of our trip

It has been a couple of weeks since we updated the blog with a bit of chatter. Not been that busy ringing, but time just seems to be slipping past as we head towards the end of our trip. In fact a week today will have left Landsort and should be settled into over-night digs in southern Sweden for the night.

But back to the last couple of weeks. Some good birds caught, even if numbers have not been so great. A late Chiffchaff was quite pleasing, but these can stay late into the year. What was more surprising was a VERY late Willow Warbler, caught on the 19th November and the latest record ever for the species this far north in Sweden. By now it should be munching flies in Africa, so it is going to have a tough job getting far enough south to survive. So to is the Hume's Leaf Warbler that has been here for the last 8 days, deftly avoiding the nets. This tiny Warbler should be in Asia now, but is here having headed west instead of east as it left it's northern breeding grounds. 

Other good catches include a female Hawfinch, a species we had been hoping to catch and a ringing tick for Chris. The Waxwings are still moving through the island in varying sized flocks, and so far we have caught over 50, a pretty good year and with calm(ish) weather forecast we might get more yet. 

Today has been very windy - over 20 metres per second - Force 8, so have been going through some of the end of season paperwork with Gunilla, the Secretary to the organisation, as well as taking some of the nets down and working on some year-end statistics. 

On Saturday we had an unexpected trip out on their boat with Lasse and Lena, island residents. We headed off from West Harbour and toured round some of the outliying islands; next stop Latvia!!!

Saw a few seals, as inquisitive as ever, a few White-tailed Eagles and a flock of 170+ Purple Sandpiper, which we learnt later to be the largest flock ever recorded in the Nynashamn municipality.

So, our trip is almost done, hopefully able to ring every one of the remaining 6 days and reach our self-imposed goal of 12,000 birds for the year.