Laajalahti 22 September 2012

Antero and Ina were again trapping at Laajalahti. The Acrocephalus season is almost over, and this was not any more constant effort trapping, but our main target were Chiffchaffs, and we played tape of their song to get larger catch. There was some heavy rain in the night, but the morning was nice with lots of calls of trushes and Eurasian Robins even before the sun rose at 7.06. It was also warm, +11C at 6.30 and +16C at 12.00. Water level was very high, over 30cm over average at 6.00 and it was very difficult to get to the outer net sites, so we used only the inner line.

	yearlings ringed	older ringed	yearlings retrapped	older retrapped
Willow Warbler	3
Chiffchaff	8
Lesser Whitethroat	1
Common Whitethroat	1	1
Blackcap	2
Sedge Warbler	24
Eurasian Reed Warbler	6
Common Redstart	1
Bluethroat	3
Eurasian Robin	5
Dunnock	2
Blue Tit	21	1	12	1
Great Tit	1
Eurasian Reed Bunting	13	2	1
Song Trush	1

The total was 111 birds, which is very good when only the half of the net sites were used.  The numbers of both Sedge and Reed Warblers were quite high for this late date.

There was lots of water. Autumn colors in the reedbed, although the birches on the background are still mostly green.

Eurasian Reed Warbler. The last will disappear from these reedbeds quite soon.

Adult Common Whitethroat with suspended moult:part of secondaries, primaries, primary coverts and greater coverts old.

Common Chiffchaff. This particular bird was one of the four with sweeoo call, the other four were not heard calling. This bird had wing length of 67, which is as long as it gets in this species - that explains the comparatively long primary projection visible in this photo.Two birds had wing only 60-61 mm, and these two were trapped farther away from the tape. Sexual dimorphism in size is quite pronounced in Phylloscopus warblers and it seems that males are more attracted to playback of song also in autumn and as young.