Today Peter and I sleep a little more in the morning, because last night we went out to Grenen to try to catch some wader, and we got home early the next morning.

Helle cleans the apartment during the morning because tomorrow she and Laila will leave.

After lunch during the afternoons we are at the Observatory, we check the weather that will not be good during the weekend, and we plan to go to ring CES the next useful day, that will be Monday.

The view from Grenen as we tried to catch waders. 

Once again we were up early to hit Grenen. I don’t know what was different today, but it certainly felt like the autumn migration. We had 33 birds and 2 retraps, the biggest number we’ve had in a day for weeks of not months. These included a sedge warbler, a pied flycatcher, sparrowhawk and juvenile great spotted woodpecker, our second of the autumn.

Once we returned to the Obs, I was very quickly collared by Flemming for a guided tour for an English couple. As it was very last minute, I did not have the nets open for long, and as such there were no birds, but they enjoyed the tour nonetheless. I was later called down again (from an afternoon nap) to discuss a possible birding tour over the weekend, but this was not followed through on because of the prospect of unsuitable weather. The ladies made themselves available to the guests, before heading to Skiveren to visit friends and, Stensnæs to go birdwatching, where they saw ospreys and crested tits.

After lunch I headed into Skagen for dinner ingredients and after dinner, Michele and I sorted out nets recordings and other equipment for a late night excursion to Grenen in search of waders. Sadly the weather turned once we were out there, and the promising stagnant pool where Michele had seen waders the precious day had turned into a full lagoon. We gave it an hour of trying to lure sanderling into the nets but gave up around 1.30.

Ringed birds                       Retraps
Willow warbler -7
Chiffchaff – 1
Reed warbler – 5
Marsh warbler – 2
Lesser whitethroat – 3
Sedge warbler – 1
Whitethroat – 8
Reed bunting – 2
Blackcap – 1                         2
Sparrowhawk – 1
Great spotted woodpecker -1

Pied flycatcher 

Sparrowhawk

Så blev det onsdag og idag er Peter og Michele gået tidlig ud. Det er dog stadig fugle småt og det blev bare til ringmærkning af en rørsanger og husrødstjert mens en munk og en torsager som var ringmærket tidligere igen sad i nettene.

Vi flotter os med morgenbrød fra bageren og glæder os over at det er idag Rita tropper op for at tage en tur med kost og spand. Sikke et dejligt menneske, med sig har hun tomater af egen avl, frugt og slik som hurtigt forsvinder haps haps haps.

Pakkerne fra DOF i København er kommet og jeg deler flittigt aktivitetskataloget ud til børn der besøger Fuglestationen. Jeg synes det er en fantastisk lærerig publication. Er forældrene i nærheden får de brochuren omkring redekassebygning i håb om vi får flere fugle/redekasser på landsplan.

Helle og jeg beslutter os for at "kratluske" ved den tilsandet kirke så afsted det går. Det blev desværre også en tyndbenede omgang - vi hørte en dompap og så 5 ravne - noget skuffende når man har drømt om topmejse.

Aftens maden er idag Helle's afdeling, de unge mennesker hviler og jeg nyder en GT fra Cafeen ved vandkanten. Her bliver det også til en snak om fugle da en kvinder henvender sig og spørger til ederfuglene der ligger på vandet.

Idag er det tidligt i seng, imorgen skal jeg med på ringmærkningstur ved Grenen - det bliver spændende.

1k husrodstjert

Dagligdagen på Skagen Fuglestation er ved at have fundet en rytme efter Helle og jeg tjekkede ind søndag. Vi hygger os med fælles måltider og aftenmøderne hvor vi får styr på både hinanden og næste dag.

Der er foretaget en oprydning i madvarer, kørt tomme flasker væk, ryddet ud i pap og så er der kommet blomster på bordet. Der er igen kvinder på stationen????

Fuglemæssigt er her dog meget stille og idag har vi slet ikke haft nettene åbne for ringmærkning. Det blæser simpelhen for meget.

Birder's Club åbner vil til gengæld hver dag kl. 10 og jeg opdagede til min skræk at Fugleaktivitets kataloget for børn (publiceret af DOF) ikke var at finde blandt brochure mm.
Et opkald til DOF i København og et par kasser er på vej????dem glæder jeg til til at dele ud.

Jeg tog idag de 210 trin til toppen af fyrtårnet - det gav vind i håret og en skøn udsigt.

Aftenturen gik rundt om Grenen til fods og her blev vi belønnet med : stor præstekrave, mudderklire, hvid vipstjert, sandløber, ederfugle, suler, splitterne, diverse måger, landsvaler, stenvender og en smuk solnedgang der hvor Kattegat og Skagerak møder hinanden.

Vi gjorde samtidig vores "borger-pligt" samlede nemlig mindst 3 stykker plastic op hver og sågar et par sko.

På hjemvejen sprang ræven over vejen og inden vi nåede hjem var Det Grå Fyr begyndt at lyse.

Today is a rather windy day not good to open the mistnets. In the morning Peter goes to visit the hospital, I stay at the Observatory to work on the pc. At 11.30 am Flemming tells me that there are two people interested in the ringing tour, they are a Dutch couple. They are passionate about birds and he has developed a smartphone app for the rereading of coloured rings and metal rings of ringed birds. So I open the nets for the tour and demonstrate the catching methods. I manage to ring two whitethroat and a yellowhammer. The visitors are very satisfied with the tour and they go away happy.

At about 2.30 pm, back to the observatory for lunch, Peter is already back, and is busy with the pc. In the afternoon I update the database and later I go to Grenen to take a look around, I see a red-throated diver not far from the beach.

I go back to the observatory at 19:00 and I find the dinner ready, today Laila cooks a very good dish for us!

After dinner we check the weather and plan the activities for the next few days.

A late morning due to the late evening, but we do get the nets up in the garden briefly. It only do we get a juvenile tree sparrow, but we also caught three whitethroats, all of which were during a guided tour, which was great for the visitors.

During the morning the next guest for the apartment, Hele, arrived, we got her settled in and introduced to everyone and then she went exploring for the afternoon. Her friend Lyla, who also arrived a little later, is one of our ambassadors and will be joining Michele and I with various visitor entertainment tasks.

For dinner I cooked a stir fry, and ran through the evening meeting, showing Lyla what her tasks would be, what the cooking rota will be for the week etc etc. The ladies went out for a walk over to Grenen afterward, before we all hit the sack.

Juvenile tree sparrow

Last night we were out to see the lunar eclipse, and this morning we do not get up early. After breakfast, during the morning, Peter and Morten go to the birder's club to welcome tourists. I'm at the observatory to insert some data to the pc.

After lunch I decide to go for a ride in Grenen, while Peter and Morten are at the observatory.

Later around 19.00 we go to eat a pizza in an Italian restaurant, it inspired me, but the pizza did not turn out to be great.

Later we stop to drink a beer and talking to Morten I find out that he is a death metal fan, I like it too, so we spend the rest of the evening talking about music and listening and playing some songs with the guitar, very funny!

Up and out early at Grenen this morning. We caught a reasonable number of birds, 22 new birds and 3 recaptures. We also managed to clear some net lanes and paths and erect two new nets, so quite a successful morning! We managed to catch 3 redpolls together one of which had a yellow instead of red forehead, quite oddly. This seems to be xanthochromism, where the red pigment is either reduced or missing entirely and is replaced by the yellow pigment. An interesting bird!

The rest of the day we take quite easy as we intend try and catch terns in the evening and also watch the blood moon. I make us a cauliflower cheese for dinner, nice to experiment with new recipes. At 9pm Anders Bojesen and his wife arrive with a lemon ‘blood’ moon cake and we spend a couple of hours waiting for the moon to rise, which it does eventually and we watch the whole eclipse through. Sadly the wind picks right up during this and we have to call off the tern netting, still there’s a few more weeks left to try.

Ringed birds.         Recaptures
Blackbirds – 1.       Redpoll - 1
Reed warbler- 4.    Whitethroat - 1
Lesser redpoll – 2.  Crested tit - 1
Blue tit – 1
Lesser whitethroat – 2
Marsh warbler – 1
Whitethroat – 4
Great tit – 3
Blackcap – 1
Willow warbler – 1
Chiffchaff - 2

Xanthochromistic lesser redpoll

Blood moon 

Once again the wind made ringing out of the question, so we ok advantage of the late morning to go birding, catch up with work or make ourselves available for visitor inquiries.

Later in the afternoon, we met with Michael Ancher to do some much needed maintenance on the CES site. With a variety of tools, including a petrol driven brush cutter, we cleared the net lanes and various footpaths in a little under an hour, despite the ferocious heat. After this I received a tour of Skagen from Morten Christensen, before escaping from the heat back at the Observatory.

Michele made us dinner this evening, mushroom pasta, and then it was an early night as we intend to go ringing at Grenen tomorrow, and also clear the net lanes and erect a few new nets.

We’re up at the crack of dawn to head to the CES site this morning. We meet Morten Christensen on site and got set up and ready by 5am. It was a very slow morning with less than 15 birds ringed or processed during 6 hours. It was horrifically hot, however, and this may have influenced bird movement.

We packed up at 11am after the standard 6 hours and I returned the keys to Michael Ancher, who very kindly offered me a cold coke. We spent a pleasant half hour chatting and enjoying the shade in his garden, before I dragged myself back to the observatory. On return to the observatory, we made sure we stayed out of the sun for a few hours after 6 hours in the beating sun on the morning.

Our friend and local Anders Bojesen, kindly invited us to dinner in the evening, a superb vegetable lasagne with an excellent ice cream and caramel sauce dessert. It was a very nice evening and a good way to relax after the long hot morning.

Juvenile blue tit, undergoing its post juvenile moult.

Reed warbler