Back home!!

After staying three days longer at Powdermill, Thursday was my second (and final) try to get to Holland! I banded a couple of hours in the morning before I took off with Brandon, who took me to the airport. 

My final morning we banded the following birds (birds after I left included):

Black-capped Chickadee 1 -

Golden-crowned Kinglet 3 -

Ruby-crowned Kinglet 5 -

Cedar Waxwing 10 -

Yellow-rumped Warbler 1 -

Song Sparrow 2 -

White-throated Sparrow 2 -

Dark-eyed Junco 5 -

Northern Cardinal 1 -

House Finch 3 -

American Goldfinch 44 -

Total 78, 12 species

We left Powdermill at 10.20 and arrived around 11.50. I said goodbye to Brandon. I had a really good time living together with Brandon the past two months. We had a lot of fun together!

Everything went smooth this time: the drive, the check-in, the security etc. Already after 20 min I could sit and wait at the gate, for the departuring flight at 3.05 pm. The flight from Pittsburgh to Philly was good, I was seated just behind the business class so I had a lot of space. I arrived in Philly around 4.30 pm. Here I had to wait about 3,5/4 hours for my flight to Amsterdam. In the mean time, I ate a slice of pizza, had a Dunkin Donut and drank a delicious strawberry smoothie. Then, at 8.50 pm, I flew home, to Amsterdam! This flight was less pleasant, as I was seated next to the lavatory, which was used frequently.. so you can imagine what that is like... Luckily for me, I slept most of the time and the time flew by so I was glad when I arrived at Schiphol at 9.30 in the morning! At Schiphol everything went fast, faster than usual! As I got out of the plane, I went through the passport check, arrived at the bagage claim where I could immediately grab my suitcase and left for the train to go to Apeldoorn. I arrived at 9.40 at the train platform where I had the train from 9.50 to Apeldoorn. Once I got home I had a shower and a two hour nap. I'm glad that my trip back has been so smooth!!

 

I was happy to see my family again (they were happy too ofcourse). I slept good last night (didn't wake up a single time!!). This morning I woke up at 7.30, to do some ringing (As if I hadn't done enough the last couple of months haha). I am now switching over again to the European terminology! So from now on you'll see me writing ringing instead of banding, first calenderyear instead of hatching year etc. hahah! I have difficulties with it already.  

It was nice to see Hans, Henri and Dirk again. It's been a good fall for the Meintjes with a lot of tits being caught! Last week, Hans caught more than 70 Blue Tits on three occasions. Hans told me that this year we've had more than 2000 new birds already in the Meintjes, which is really good.

Today was a decent morning too. When Tammo and I left around 13.30 the counter stood on 25 Blue Tits and 13 Great Tits, but Hans stayed a bit longer so he might have had some more. With our clap net we caught a Meadow Pipit, which was cool. 

Now some European bird species again!!!

Great Tit, 1cy

 Robin, 1cy

Meadow Pipit, 1cy

When I got home I saw that I had gotten my Nyjer feeder! So this afternoon I put it up in our backyard. I used a nice mistnet pole to attach the feeder on. With a bit of creativity it fit on, and this is the result:

Now let's hope that the birds like it too!