Today the weather is perfect for ringing.
At 5:00 am I, Mats, Joakim and Preben go to Grenen to open the mistnets. Peter remained at the observatory to undertake his Census experiment.It‘s a very interesting morning, we catch a good number of birds of different species, including two swallows and many young birds born this year. The boys have the opportunity to see different species of different age classes, they are very happy with the morning. At 10:00 am it is very hot, and the number of catches drops considerably. Satisfied, at 10:30 am we decide to close the nets and return to the lighthouse. As soon as we get back to the observatory, Simon, Peter and I make an accurate check on the ringing database, of all the data of recaptures carried out in 2018.

Immediately after lunch we are all busy with the weekly cleaning of the observatory. After cleaning, I get back to work to upload the new ringing data to the database, from the morning in Grenen.

Tonight we are planning to go to ringing the nightjars, so we take the opportunity to sleep a few hours in the afternoon. Later our friends Lars Mortensen and Anders Bojesen arrive, they will come with us to help with ringing the nightjars. While we wait for the night we prepare all the equipment, and watch the semi-final of the World Cup Croatia-England.Immediately after the game we move towards the place for the nightjar, about a half hour drive from the observatory.

As soon as we arrive we erect two mist-nets, we start the tape lure and wait. After more than an hour of waiting, we finally catch and ring a nightjar! It is a beautiful male individual. This species is always very fascinating! After this we take a brief trip around the back lanes listening for quail and corncrake, while we here plenty of the former, we don’t hear a sound from the latter. At 4am we all wearily climb into bed after a job well done.

Ringing birds Recaptures
9 Whitethroat. 1 whitethroat
2 Reed bunting. 1 Blackcap
1 Great tit. 2 lesser whitethroat
1 Blackcap
1 Chaffinch
2 Barn swallow
1 Reed warbler
2 Crested tit
4 Lesser whitethroat
1 Chiffchaff
1 Willow warbler
1 Nightjar
1 Whitethroat
1 Blackcap
2 Lesser whitethroat

Two barn swallows.

Michele ringing the male nightjar

Dagens store indsats blev gjort på Verdens Ende, Grenen. Da Morten, Michele, Preben og Joakim ankom til ca. 8 m/s fra nordøst, som i nat havde været 15 m/s fra øst, blev der talt 180 mursejlere i løbet af et par minutter. Det var åbenlyst, at et stort mursejler-træk var i gang. Dette var ikke noget vi havde forudset; vi havde hået på, at nattens blæsevejr ville give et par skråper eller nogle andre spændend havfugle. Vi talte fra Verdens Ende i perioden 0530-1730 27.310 mursejlere trækkende i østlig retning.

Dette specielle mursejlertræk menes at være et "vejrtræk", hvor mursejlere, måske helt fra Sverige og Tyskland, har bevæget sig rundt om nattens lavtryk og så fulgt den jyske vestkyst op til Skagen hvorefter de, for størstepartens vedkommende, er fløjet videre over til Göteborg eller videre nedad den jyske østkyst. Der blev observeret mursejlere langs den jyske vestkyst hele dagen igennem, så vores mursejlere er kommet langt nede sydfra, måske fra Tyskland og Holland.

Peter har introduceret en standardiseret fugletællingspraksis, som han kalder for "census". Fugletællingen skal foregå på samme måde og langs samme rute hver morgen sæsonen igennem. Alle fugle samt deres adfærd registeres på vejen og man prøver så vidt muligt også at alders- og kønsbestemme dem. Tallene bliver lagt ind i DOFbasen med kommentaren "census" i notefeltet. Dette gør, at vi nemt kan trække en census liste for en bestemt periode og manipulere data til vores behov. Ruten går fra fyret rundt om Storsig-heden til den nye gangbro ved sumpen. Derefter går vi øst langs den nye grussti rundt om Ellekratsøen, igennem Ellekrattet og forbi forbi Grenen P-plads ud til Kattegat. Til sidst går vi langs vandet tilbage til fyret. Vores første censustur gav en syngende Græshoppesanger, Rødrygget Tornskade, Bynkefugle mm.

Af andre aktiviteter kan nævnes, at Simon havde et møde med Kurt, Knud, Niels og Lene fra Venneforeningen. Vi har i dag også behandlet data fra genfangster fra foråret.

Vi tog alle til aften alle ud og grillede hos Anders på Nordlysvej i det gode varme vejr med optil 25C. Anders havde lavet lækker kartoffelsalat til vores medbragte kød og veggie burgers.

Efter et par hyggelige timer hos Anders, kørte vi alle tilbage til stationen for at se Frankrig - Belgien spille semifinale i VM i fodbold. Der blev serveret chips, øl og ciders.

Efter an halvkedelig fodboldkamp gik de fleste i seng og der blev sat natsommerfuglelokning op ved fyret. Da Morten skulle tjecke lokningsområdet morgenen efter, fløj der et par gulspurve op fra lagenet. De har sikkert forsynet sig med nogle godbidder fra nattens tillokkede sommerfugle.

Egespinder

The final tally of the swift passage at Grenen.

One of the 27000 swifts. . .

This morning we had plans to go to ring in Grenen, but the strong wind did not allow it. Joakim and Mads take the opportunity to go birdwatching, while Peter and I are at the birder's club to welcome visitors and work on the pc. At 10.00 am there is a tour guide for a family of 11 Danish people. During the afternoon Simon has a meeting with the freelance journalist Søren Shov. Later, in anticipation of his absence periods during July and August, Simon plans with Peter and me the activities and logistics of the observatory for the rest of the summer. Later in the afternoon Peter goes to monitor the cormorant colony, and a new guest arrives in the observatory, his name is Prepen and he will stay with us for twelve days. Morten prepares excellent hamburgers for dinner, which we roast and eat outside in the garden, until too much wind compels us to return home.
After dinner we have a daily meeting, plan activities for the week, and go to sleep.

Cormorant colony, with lots of almost fledged juveniles.

Juvenile cormorant almost ready to leave the nest. 

The previous afternoon Simon and I had been discussing the potential for improving the recording rate and DOFbasen registrations for the Observatory. I have had experience with undertaking daily census’ for Long Point Bird Observatory, and I thought it would be a good idea to try and implement one here at Skagen. That being the plan, Morten and I were up and out at 6am to start my planned route. It was a very good couple of hours, with grasshopper warbler, whinchat and red backed shrike being the highlights, and not birds I’d expected around the observatory in July!

Whilst we were doing that Mads and Joakim headed up to Grenen where they saw a lot of decent birds, but the highlight of which was a pair of Manx shearwaters passing by. Michele was up and in the birders club, ready to answer visitors questions, and Morten had gone back home briefly.

I managed to head down to the beach for a few minutes swimming (it was very cold) and I settled for watching a few passing terns and ducks before getting the message that dinner was ready.

The boys had cooked up a hearty pasta dish for us all, and afterwards we continued with various data entry tasks. As sometimes happens at bird observatories, washing up was interrupted by the sight of a juvenile black redstart searching for food around the courtyard.

Grasshopper warbler reeling.

Juvenile black redstart

After the festivities the evening before, no one was up early, especially the latest returnees who didn’t get out of bed until noon! Those of us that were up earlier however continued to get on with jobs around the Observatory and manning our information posts at the birders club. We also put the sign out for a guided tour, but we didn’t get any visitors. The boys went out birding earlier in the morning.

Later in the day we were joined by Morten Christensen, who will be staying with us for a few days. We sat and watched the football and then Joakim and Mads came in to say they’d seen a red throated diver ridiculously close on the beach. Morten and I dashed out to try and find it, but alas it seemed to have moved on quickly. We did see some house martins picking up seaweed on the beach, presumably for nesting material? I’ve never heard of them using seaweed before. Before the next football game started I cooked us all a vegetable stew, and we headed down to watch Croatia satisfyingly outplay Russia.

Red throated diver

House matins gathering seaweed for their nests.

Today was the day for CES, so we were all up early, a little earlier than usual as we have to erect two nets each session now to reduce squirrel damage overnight. The net was pretty tangled and took an hour or so to erect but other than that the morning went smoothly. We caught 15 or so birds, many youngsters and a few adults that were starting their post breeding moult, which was an educational experience for all. We also had a pair of red backed shrikes and a common crossbill present at the ringing site, which was unusual and led us to hope they’d go in the net, however they sadly didn’t.

After the CES wrapped up we headed back to the Obs for some much needed sleep. However we didn’t sleep for long as we were heading to the Skagen Music Festival! We watched a great Irish band during the afternoon and moved around throughout the evening, trying to catch music and the football, before heading back in ones and twos to the Obs much later on.

Great tit adult showing postbreeding moult.

Juvenile robin.

Eftersom vi havde været sent ude i går, sov vi længe. Der var ikke meget planlagt og det stod til primært at blive en praktisk dag. Joakim og jeg cyklede ved middagstid til Skagen for at handle mad til vores aftensmad. Vi besluttede os for kartoffelmos med topping og bacon, hvilket var en førstegangsting for os begge.
Ved 15:00-tiden cyklede Joakim, Michele og jeg til skarvkolonien ikke langt fra stationen. På vejen så vi to hugorme, Joakim og min første. Ved skarvkolonien blev der observeret og talt unger i rede såvel som gamle fugle. Optællingen var rimelig hurtigt overstået og vi cyklede hjem for at nå at slappe lidt af inden der skulle laves aftensmad. Tilbage på stationen var Peter blevet færdig med sin video han havde brugt lang tid på. Vi var imponerede, og den opnår forhåbentligt at få lidt flere mennesker ind i Birder’s Club
Maden blev overraskende god, om end den blev en anelse forsinket. Michele sagde sågar at det måske var det bedste han havde fået mens han har været her. Vi gik tidligt i seng da vi skulle op kl. 03:15 morgenen efter og ringmærke.

Juvenile Adder

Planen for denne dag var til at starte med at sove længe. Afhængigt af vejret ville der nemlig være mulighed for at ringmærke terner natten til torsdag, så det skulle vi jo være udhvilede til. Denne plan gik dog hurtigt i vasken da der kl. 06:56 kommer en melding via BirdAlarm om, at der er observeret Triel ude på Grenen. Simon gør både Mads og jeg opmærksomme på dette omkring kl. 07:15 og vi kommer hurtigt ud af sengene og afsted mod Grenen med både kamera, teleskop og kikkert under armen. Fuglen var desværre væk da vi nåede frem, men sammen med Sebastian og Jonathan, som havde fundet Trielen en times tid forinden, igangsatte vi en eftersøgning i området omkring Grenen. Kl. 09:28 var heldet med os (eller nogen af os), da Trielen pludselig flyver op fra jorden nedenfor Verdens Ende. Jeg er selv heldig nok til at befinde mig kun 20 meter fra hvor fuglen genfindes. Det er dog ikke alle der er lige heldige og da Mads befinder sig på den forkerte side af Verdens ende får han ikke fuglen at se. Det lykkes os desværre ikke at genfinde den selvom vi eftersøger den en times tid derefter.

Herefter brugte vi (Mads og jeg) en times tid på Verdens Ende hvor 7 røde glenter, 12 musvåger, 1 rørhøg og en spurvehøg kom forbi. Resten af dagen gik med afslapning uden de helt store aktiviteter for vores vedkommende.
Dog var der ikke helt stille på fuglestationen denne dag og alt imens Mads og jeg var på Grenen benyttede de andre tiden til noget andet. Af heraf kan nævnes: Simon havde en guidet tur for 2 besøgende om morgen, hvor der desværre ikke var mange fugle hverken i nettene eller på himlen på den halvanden time som turen varede. Kurt og Niels fra Skagen Fuglestations bestyrelse holdte møde med Simon i dagligstuen. Peters dag gik primært med at arbejde på en video fra fuglestationen.

Aften bød ikke på ringmærkning af terner, men Mads, Peter, Micheal og jeg drog alligevel mod Grenen kl. 24:00 for at se om der skulle gemme sig nogle terner eller vadefugle som vi kunne fange og eventuelt ringmærke. Vi medbragte lommelygter og et stort håndholdt net. Fugle var der ikke mange af, et par ryler, 2 terner og en enlig Canadagås var hvad det kunne blive til på Grenen. På vej tilbage mod fuglestation løb vi dog ind i et par store præstekraver med to næsten flyvefærdige unger, hvoraf det lykkedes Micheal og Peter at fange den ene. Den blev dog hurtigt sat ud til forældrene igen.
Alt i alt en rolig dag med lidt forskellige små-aktiviteter, hvor Trielen var dagens største hit og skuffelse (alt efter hvem man spørger).

Stoer præstekrave (juvenile)

Triel - Jonathan Hemmer-Hansen

Today is the first day of ringing in Grenen for new volunteers arrived yesterday evening, Mads and Joakim. We open the nets at 06:00 am.
The day is good, and we take the opportunity to clean all the grass from the nets. We capture a good number of birds, many of them juveniles, and two common redpolls, beautiful for me, as they are not common in Italy. Mads and Joakim are very enthusiastic about catches, and eager to learn, they listen and they are very careful while I and Peter ringing each bird. At 9:30 we close the nets. In three and a half hours we ringed 24 birds.We all go back to the observatory, and while Peter and I resume our indoor tasks, the boys go to Skagen to do their shopping for the observatory.

In the afternoon Simon, Peter and I meet in Birder's club, to illustrate new works and proposals, and think of new ideas for optimising the Birder's club, in terms of open space for the reception and entertainment of visitors to the observatory.
Subsequently Mads and Joakim join us, and we move on to the study of the age of the passerines, one of the most important activities to consolidate the experience of ringing, which Simon promotes in the observatory involving all the volunteers. Simon projects images of different individuals of different age classes, belonging to different species and with different moulting strategies, onto the maxi-screen. The participants, provided with a wing scheme and ageing codes, must correctly determine the age of each individual. I think it is one of the most effective methods to study and better understand the moulting strategies of passerines. Later I explain to Mads and Joakim the operation of the ringing database, and together we input today’s ringing data.

As soon as we finish Mads and Joakim start preparing dinner. They prepare a delicious dish, I think in Danish style, that Peter and I appreciate very much!
After dinner there is a daily meeting, we speak about today's activities and plan the following days.
Today was a very productive and instructive day.

Ringed birds:         
6 Whitethoat          4 Crested tit
2 Blackbird            1 Reed warbler
1 Great tit.             3 Lesser whitethroat
1 Reed bunting      4 Blue tit
2 Common redpoll

Simon giving a moult lecture

Crested tit and blue tit juveniles

We remained around the lighthouse in the morning today, with the nets open from 7 to 11am. Michele caught a few juveniles of various species, but the highlight was during my first round when I extracted the first crested tit of the summer, if not the year and my first in the hand. Like all the others it was a juvenile, but no less impressive for all that. Aside from that, there was a brief passage of raptors including a red kite and a few buzzards, one of which was doing a very convincing impression of a rough legged buzzard, as they can irritatingly do quite often. Michele had a honey buzzard over on the afternoon, so not a bad day for raptors considering the month.

After lunch it was back on with the inevitable computer work, whilst waiting for our two new volunteers, Mads and Joakim to arrive. They turned up around four, narrowly avoiding a several hour traffic jam. They were given the ‘grand tour’ and introduced to everyone and then had a quick bird around the local area, coming from Copenhagen they were not familiar with some of the species that he have here . Michele cooked us a lovely pasta dish in the evening before we introduced the two lads to the evening meeting. The outcome of which was a plan to ring at Grenen tomorrow, come hell or high winds (probably not high winds).

Crested tit