Today was my first full day at Skagen Bird Observatory. Although i was with yesterday evening with exciting wader night-catching, this morning was pretty quiet. Wind and rain prevented us from ringing at Grenen, so my crew showed me the garden nets close to the lighthouse and we opened them for a few hours in the morning. We re-captured a Blackcap and because she was actively molting her flight feathers we knew she was an adult. One of the nice things about being a North American ringer in Europe for the first time is that even common birds are still quite exciting to me!

Simon had a meeting with Kurt Rasmussen and Niels Eriksen about how to increase visitors to the observatory and the exhibition here at Skagen. They brought us delicious cake, which we enjoyed while taking cover from the rainy weather and entering data.

When the weather cleared in the afternoon, I ventured with a spotting scope up to the point at Grenen to see the “Kattegat,” where the North and Baltic seas meet. It was thrilling to see numerous Gannets diving just offshore. I have never seen them quite so close and I am loving viewing familiar birds in novel circumstances and also getting to know European species. There were hundreds of Common Scoters offshore, with some Velvet Scoters mixed in. On the sand at the point I also saw a number of Red Knots, Sanderling, Dunlin, and one passing Bar-tailed Godwit.

In the evening we were joined by Lars and Morten for a delicious vegetarian dinner, courtesy of Simon. We followed up dinner with a rousing game of "I'm a migrant," to continue our education of moult and migration strategies of various Western Palearctic birds. After evening festivities, Daniel, Morten and I headed back out to Grenen to try and catch more Red Knots in the night, but alas, we were not successful. There is always tomorrow!

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Lisa Vergin, Molly Brown, Sasha Munters, Daniel Bloche, Lars Mortensen, Morten Christiansen

Although the day started rainy and windy, we went outside into the dunes to observe resting and migrating birds with Knud. We started the observation at 06:35 and ended it at 10:05. It was really successful. We saw many waders, gulls and ducks. I was fascinated particularly of the high number of passing Gannets (Sule). Nearly 500 had been migrating through the coast of Grenen in the few hours. You can find the entire list of observed species on DOFbasen.

Later we opened some nets at the Lighthouse Garden for two hours without success. Furthermore we searched for a Nutcracker (Nøddeknækkeren) unsuccessfully, which was reported by local birders.  But our luck changes in the evening. At 10pm we went out to catch some waders again. We got a Dunlin (Almindelig Ryle), Red Knot (Islandsk Ryle) and an Arctic Tern (Havterne). Due to it was the first catch of a Tern at this season, we all were very excited.

In the afternoon Sasha arrived at Skagen. She is from the US and a new volunteer for this month. Together with Simon we had a meeting about different moult strategies. It was very interesting and we learned how to identify moult limits of different species. It was a good day with observations, successful and unlucky catches.

Birds we ringed together with Simon were the Dunlin (Almindelig Ryle), Red Knot (Islandsk Ryle) and an Arctic Tern (Havterne) we caught at night.

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Knud Pedersen, Lisa Vergin, Molly Brown, Sasha Munters, Daniel Bloche

Today has great potential to become the day with the best catch for this year! This morning, Molly
and I went out to go ringing with Michael Ancher in Jennes Sø. It’s a small catching area with just
6 mistnets, so normally its not very possible to catch a rare bird. But today we caught a Arctic
Warbler (Nordsanger) - thats the first one for Nordjylland and just the 7th that has been seen in
Denmark! And again a new species for Molly and me. When I extracted the Arctic Warbler from
the net, I wouldn’t have anticipate how much attention this little bird would attract. After Simon
announced the good news, the first local birders arrived within minutes to see and photograph the
special bird, so that was a great opportunity to meet the locals.

Later in the day, Simon took us to Stald Grenen, where we saw among others Spotted Flycatchers
(Grå Fluesnapper), Pied Flycatchers (Broget Fluesnapper), Grey Wagtails (Hvid Vipstjert) and
Yellow Wagtails (Gul Vipstjert). After that, we visited Michael and his nice family and celebrated
our exciting ringing morning.

And in the evening Daniel Bloche arrived - a new volunteer who‘s staying til the end of September
just like me. At 10pm we went again at the beach to catch some waders and were successful: we
caught two Dunlins (Almindelig ryle).
All in all you can say it was just an amazing day with great experiences and definitely a day to
remember!

Birds we ringed together with Michael (until we caught the Arctic Warbler): 5 Redpoll (Stor
Gråsisken), 1 Chiffchaff (Gransanger), 1 Wren (Gærdesmute) and of course the Arctic Warbler
(Nordsanger).

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Michael Ancher, Molly Brown, Daniel Bloche, Lisa Vergin and all
local birders.

Today we had a bit more of a lie in, it’s quite windy at the moment so we opened nets here in the lighthouse garden at about 08:00  for the guided tour with the junior rangers, we only caught two birds; a Dunnock (Jernspurv) and Redstart (Rødstjert) but still quite pleasing when you consider the weather. It was also good that we could show the junior rangers extraction and processing of birds and help spark an interest in them and encourage our future generation!

Then the afternoon was quite quiet, we sorted through old pictures and cleared the observatory phone. Then in the evening because it was stormy weather we decided to go out onto the beach to see if there were any seals and to see if we could catch any waders. The trip was very successful, we went out at about 11pm with a net and torch we saw 5 Foxes, 4 Natterjack Toads, 2 Seals and caught and rung a Purple Sandpiper (Sortgrå ryle), another new bird for me! Catching waders requires a lot of stealth, luck and rainy weather and tonight we had all three! It was an excellent end to the day and worth missing a couple of hours of sleep!

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Lisa Vergin and Molly Brown

This morning started again with ringing at Grenen. And it`s pretty cool when you compare the handling of the routines – like finding and checking all the nets (that`s actually not that easy, it`s like a labyrinth out there!), extracting the birds from the nets, ringing them etc. – at the first day of ringing and the handling now, because we`ve already learned so much in these few days and we`re improving every time. Furthermore, Simon led a guided tour again with nice visitors from England to the ringing spot.

In the afternoon, I went for a walk on the beach and found a lot of nice seashells and -snails. Especially, I`m happy about the many pelican`s foot I`ve found, because in Germany they`re much harder to find – to be honest, I`ve never found one there, and today I collected more than twenty!

 In the coming days, it should become windier and I hope, the wind will lead nice birds into the Kattegat and more shells to the beach.

Altogether, we ringed 27 birds: 6 Great Tits (Musvit), 4 Coal Tits (Sortmejse), 3 Blue Tits (Blåmejse), 2 Dunnocks (Jernspurv), 2 Chiffchaffs (Gransanger), 1 Willow Warbler (Løvsanger), 1 Pied Flycatcher (Broget Fluesnapper), 1 Reed Warbler (Rørsanger) and 1 Reed Bunting (Rørspurv).

People: Simon S. Christansen, Molly Brown, Lisa Vergin

Today was quite an exciting ringing session at Grenen for myself as I rang a Pied Flycatcher- not uncommon to catch here but a new bird for me! Gilles Hauser (an experienced ringer from Switzland) joined us for the mornings events and helped us to identify the song of a Penduline tit and Serin, quite special migrants here in Skagen! Simon did a guided ringing tour also during the morning, then we came back to the station to find the lovely Rita had Coffee ready and waiting for us after cleaning, what a gem!

A pleasant surprise since arriving in Skagen is how friendly everyone is here and also how gorgeous the weather has been, Simon and I made the most by going for a quick swim in the sea as a break from entering data and creating a new video for Facebook.

 In the afternoon, we met Jens Kirkeby who came to talk to Simon about nocturnal sound recordings here at the observatory this would be interesting as we could compare the results to the radar here, which identifies passing birds . Then in the evening, we made pizza and had a great Shuffle ball tournament (I won)!

Jens and Simon

We rung 23 birds in total: Blackcap 3, Redstart 11, Whitethroat 1, Pied Flycatchers 3, Reed Warbler 1, Lesser Whitethroat 1, Great Tit 1, Wheatear 1 and a Blue Tit.

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Lisa Vergin, Gilles Hauser, Rita Pate, Jens Kirkeby and Molly Brown.

Today, it was the first time that we`ve been ringing with Simon. We started in the early morning at 5:30, but it was worth it! We went to Grenen, where 18 mist nets are placed. The most common birds for this ringing-day were Blackcaps (Munk) with 7 caught and Coal Tits (Sortmejse) with 4 caught. But we also rung 1 Lesser Whitethroat (Gærdesanger), 1 Goldcrest (Fuglekonge), 3 Robins (Rødhals), 3 Yellowhammers (Gulspurv), 3 Common Redstarts (Rødstjert), 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker (Stor Flagspætte), 2 Great Tits (Musvit), 2 Garden Warblers (Havesanger) and 1 Wheatear (Stenpikker). Apart from the Danish bird names, we also learned a lot about moult stages and how these indicate ages.
Knud visited us at the ringing spot and later on he and Simon went looking for new bicycles for the station, which is great for us volunteers, because it`s beautiful to cycle in Skagen.
Later we had to update the ringing database with todays results (maybe not the most exciting work, but it`s quite necessary) and learned how to do a moult card for the different ages of wing feather.
So it was a very nice day with a lot of new things and we`re looking forward to next (ringing) days!

People: Molly Brown, Knud Pedersen, Simon S. Christiansen, Lisa Vergin

After arriving a day or two ago, Lisa and I had our first proper day, starting with a trip to Nordstrand with Knud and onto Cormorant lake and Grenen. At Nordstrand we had a quick look at the sea revealing 12 Velvet Scotor, 500 Common Scotor, 4 harbor porpoises and 7 migrating Wigeon. We then walked to Cormorant Lake, which had no Cormorants! However, did have Water Rail- a new bird for Lisa, 5 Snipe and 20 Teal. We then trekked through the dunes to Grenen where we managed to read colour rings for 17 gulls- a new record for Knud! When we arrived back at the station, we met Simon who showed us the ropes and gave us a quick tour before sending us off to rescue a sick Gannet on the beach- that we handed over to animal rescue! In the evening, Simon showed us the ringing site at Grenen ready for ringing early Tuesday morning and introduced us to the infamous Skagen Fuglestation Shuffle Ball! Then we took a quick late night look for Natterjack Toads, which was successful, what a brilliant day in Skagen and with lots more to come!

Lisa & Molly

People: Lisa Vergin, Molly Brown, Knud Pedersen, Simon S. Christiansen.