Text & Photos © Pia Fetting
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| Mist-nets at sunrise |
Arriving in Azerbaijan in the
middle of August, the first days were used for organisational issues and
meetings. I finally started bird ringing on the 20th of August. This month is
rather hot with temperatures of more than 30°C during daytime and never below
20°C at night. Several days were quite windy, which influenced the number of
mist-netted birds. As I was alone the first weeks, I only used 54 metres of
nets and due to the heat, nets were only opened for the first six hours after
sunrise.
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| A stunner in hand - Golden Oriole |
In these first two weeks, 466 birds
of 23 species were ringed and additional 24 birds re-trapped. Although there
was nothing surprising among the species, the composition was nice, with lots
of warbler species, several Shrikes, some Orioles, Wrynecks and so on. Whilst
some adults still undertook their post-breeding moult and several juveniles still
grew their flight feathers, other birds were already prepared for migrating
with higher fat scores.
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| Blyth's Reed Warbler |
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| Green Warbler |
From the beginning of September
onwards, there will be volunteers joining and helping with the fieldwork.
Together, we will be able to set up more mist-nets, and when weather is cooling
a bit down, we can start with full-day ringing. As there also were fewer and
fewer re-traps compared to the first couple of days, migration seems to be
picking up – I am looking forward for the caughts to come!
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| Nasty but beautiful - Lesser Grey Shrike |
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| The most common species group with about 60% of all trapped birds - Sylvia warblers (f.t.l.t.b.r.: Barred, Blackcap, Lesser White, Garden, Common White, Menetries's Warbler) |
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| Successful catch |
