Post date: Jun 8, 2013 9:40:30 AM
After a few months of uncertain waiting, I finally got a full permit to capture and ring birds in Sweden, in Veberöd and Krankesjön region, Skåne. I also had to wait for the arrival of new ringing equipment but, finally, I started trapping some birds this week.
Currently the purposes are to collect samples to study the transmission and prevalence of avian malaria in the bird community around Krankesjön, in collaboration with colleagues from Lund University. In addition, I will be trying out a couple of sites in order to determine the best place and effort (number of nets and their placement) to start up a constant-effort ringing site (CES) at Krankesjön (and perhaps at another site) next year. There are already a few ringers who are keen on helping me to maintain the CES, which will be very useful since I have a few studies going on in Portugal, where I must spend some time every year.
Fittingly, the first bird I ringed with my own rings in Sweden was a Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus), the commonest bird in this country. But amongst the few birds ringed so far are already some (other) nice species, including River Warbler (Locustella fluviatilis), Wood Warbler (Phylloscopus sibilatrix), Thrush Nightingale (Luscinia luscinia), Lesser Witethroat (Sylvia curruca), a Marsh Warbler (Acrocephalus palustris) and Marsh Tit (Parus palustris). A few of these are quite common in Sweden, but absent from Portugal.
Anyway, I'm starting quite slowly, as I need some time to get used to the ring sizes for each species etc, but numbers are expected to increase quite dramatically before my return to Portugal in August to work on the Aquatic Warblers (Acrocephalus paludicola) and Reed Buntings (Emberiza schoeniclus).
I will regularly update the number of birds ringed per species on the Ringing (sub)webpage.
Cheers
JMN