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

Our plans to ring at Grenen are thwarted by stronger wind than forecast coming from an unfavourable direction. So we make the most of it by continuing to catch up with our admin and making ourselves available to visitors.

Around lunchtime we head in to do other tasks, that can only be done on the stations computer, DOFbasen and checking up some odd rings that had been flagged up on the ringing data website. Simon is busy all day leading a group around the local area, but comes in after lunch with Peter Christensen, who donates a tables worth of bird books to the observatory, which was very generous!
Michele takes advantage of the slow afternoon to head to the beach for some birding/bathing and I continue to catch up with tasks at the Obs.

I cook us a hasty meal before we head downstairs to join several locals in watching the Denmark-Croatia football game and a fun time is had by all (more fun perhaps by those without a side in this game!).

Black headed gull

Eider

This morning Peter and I go to the beach to the north to monitor the chicks of ringed plovers and to find the terms favourite roosting spot. We observe two of the the chicks of ringed plovers that we have ringed more than two weeks ago, sandwich terns, common terns, arctic terns, gannets, eiders, great black-backed gulls, lesser black-backed gulls, herring gulls, black-headed gulls, five honey buzzards, kestrels, cormorants and various species of passerines.

In mid-morning we return to the observatory to entertain tourists and work on the PC until lunchtime.

In the afternoon, Peter stay at the observatory to work on the internal tasks, while I go out to take some photos that I need for an activity with the visitors. I go back to the observatory at 6.00 pm to prepare dinner, Italian pasta with mushrooms. After dinner we meet to plan the various activities for the next few days. We decide to go and ring Grenen tomorrow morning if the wind is not strong.

We have received a book a few days ago from the Norwegian Store Færder Fugelstajon as a gift. It celebrates 50 years of the observatories life and is a very interesting read (for those of us that can read Norwegian!)

Ringed plover adult

It was a very windy morning when we awoke, putting paid to any ideas we had of ringing. So another day of admin and being ‘information kiosks’ for visitors. Before we started Michele headed to Grenen to check out the tern roosts position for possible ringing excursions in the future. As it turned out the dog walkers beat him there and the terns were not stationary when he arrived. We’ll try again tomorrow. He did find two more ringed plover chicks that were unringed so we may try and rectify that tomorrow.

It was a reasonably useful morning for me, with some computer work done and with my sign that says ‘ask me about birds’ in the birding club I managed to help a few people with inquiries and even get them into the exhibition.

Post a ‘leftover’ lunch, we had an hour or two to ourselves, before I went out for cormorant monitoring in the late afternoon. The colony is fairly dynamic now, and things have changed yet again. From one side nests appear to be emptying because chicks have fledged, and from the other it seems nests are being emptied of eggs and small chicks by a predator (can’t say fox as I’ve not seen it again since the first time). It looks to be a much more successful year for cormorant productivity this year which is great news. On the other hand the red necked grebes have completely abandoned the site, all seven of their nests disappearing within a week. The lake however is still a hive of activity, plenty of young black headed gulls (where did they come from?) greylag geese, young mallards and plenty of singing warblers.

After I returned the Friends of Skagen Bird Observatory were having a grill. It was good to catch up with some of the friends, and the members of the board, and the food was good too! Very pleasant way to finish off a hot day.

This morning Peter and I are going to ring at the CES site, we open the nets at 04:30 am. Today is a sunny day, not windy and very hot, good for the working of the mist-nets, but not good for the huge number of mosquitoes and flies! We catch a good number of breeding species, many young birds fresh from the nest. Between each net check we find the time for the maintenance of the net lane, cutting the tall grass and the shrubs. At 10.30 am, after six hours as per protocol, we close the mist-nets at CES and go back to the observatory. At 11:00 we decide to open the nets in the garden for a couple of hours, to try to catch some young crested tit, which we saw the previous day around the nets. But the weather doesn’t help us, as soon as I open the nets the wind increases considerably, and it is not good for the nets. We only take a recapture of a blackcap.

We take this time to be available to visitors to the observatory for all questions and trivia.
Peter goes to the center and I stay at the birder's club, and between each net I entertain visitors, including a family of Italians with whom I have the opportunity to freely speak my language after a month. I talk to them about the various activities of the Observatory and answer their questions. They are very surprised that I work here, they really appreciate the conversation and they compliment me, I am very pleased.

After lunch we rest for a few hours.

Later I reactivate myself to arrange and thoroughly clean the laboratory.
For dinner, Peter prepares a super minestrone, just what it takes today!
After dinner we update the databases with the data collected in the morning and we organise ourselves for the following days.

Ringed birds                        Recaptures
2 Blackbird.                            1 whitethroat 
1 Robin.                                 1 wren
2 Reed warbler.                     1 blackcap
2 Lesser whitethroat
1 Chiffchaff
1 Willow warbler
1 Blackcap
1 Whitethroat
1 Blue tit
5 Great tit 

Common whitethroat 

Grey Herons over Jennes Sø

The moth trap was open again last night and Simon caught another poplar hawkmoth. That was the only catch of the morning however as we were all wrapped up in computer work, entering fieldwork data, writing the diary entries and entering fieldwork data. Also, as it was a Wednesday the main task was to clean the apartment and the laboratory. With only two people this took quite a lot of time!

After cleaning, and lunch, Michele and I headed out to the CES site to make sure the nets were intact for tomorrow’s session. Unfortunately two of the panels on one net had been cut, jury’s out as to whether it was a human or animal pest that caused the damage. We repaired the damage and hoped it wasn’t repeated before we come tomorrow morning. After we returned I was given some schooling by Michele and Simon in how to fix a bike puncture! Before I came to Skagen, I hadn’t used a bike outside of a gym for 15 years. Needless to say the first few weeks of riding everywhere were . .painful! And it seems Danish tyres are different to English as I just couldn’t get the patch to stay on (or that’s my excuse anyway). I scurried away as fast as humanly possible after this and went for a swim in Kattergat. Fantastic temperature and superb visibility, only slightly marred by getting stung by a jellyfish!

Simon cooked us a lovely dinner, a very Mediterranean style pasta bake, and we discussed the activities of the coming weeks, not just the current, as we have some tasks that need completing before the end of July.

A hawkmoth caterpillar of some species that Michele and I found on the way to the CES site.

This morning the school of Brovandeskolen arrived for a visit to the observatory, with about 70 children. At 9:00 am I opened the nets in the garden, hoping to catch some birds to show the children. Fortunately, I find three young whitethroat recently flown from the nest, and Simon shows them to the children and explains about the ringing activity.

In addition to ringing, Simon explains to children about our moth trap. At night we place a white cloth with a particular light bulb to attract the moths, and at the bottom we place empty egg cartons, where the moths will then tend to take refuge during the first hours of light. With this system we can determine the interesting species present near the observatory.
Together with the children we find two interesting moth species:
• Poppelsværme - english name: poplar hawk-moth - latin name: Laothoe populi
• Aftenpåfugleøje - english name: eyed hawk-moth - latin name: Smerinthus ocellata
At about 11:30 I close the mist-nets, and I stay until lunchtime at the birder's club to study and answer some questions from the visitors. During the morning Igor and Johan leave, we say goodbye and thank them for their work and for their good company. I thank them again for the barbecue they organised last night. We spent a wonderful evening eating, laughing and talking about the cultural differences / similarities between the peoples of our different countries, very interesting.
In the afternoon, Peter works at a video presentation for the birder's club, while I maintain the ringing area, I take gardening tools and clean the tall grass and branches the mist-nets. After dinner we gather to plan the activity for the rest of the week.

Common whitethroat fledgling. 

Michele and I were up early this morning to see what ringing we could do in the observatory garden. We had nets open from 6 to 10 and only caught 4 birds, so not a fantastic haul. One was a recently fledged yellowhammer and another was a tree pipit, which were nice to see in the hand.

After we closed the nets, we both decided to be more visible around the centre for anyone that wanted to ask questions about the birds of the area of our work here in general. I based myself in the centre, but as I didn’t have a sign, very few people approached me (this has been rectified) but I did chat to a few visitors and they seemed to go away happy. Hopefully we can be more present around the centre over the next month at least, to help guide and inform.

After lunch Simon came back, with a camera crew in tow, ready to film a section about the Iberian chiffchaff we caught a month ago, and soon disappeared off to film the bird itself. After a brief afternoon snooze, I headed over to the cormorant colony to undertake the bi weekly count. This has changed slightly in the recent weeks. In collaboration with Morten, we’ve picked out the nests we want to focus on for the season and so each visit now will be focussing mainly on those nests (though we’ll still be recording what happens to the others as a whole). It was an interesting visit, things have changed in the week that I haven’t been there. The red necked grebes have all lost their nests, and not just the eggs, but all of the nests have disappeared, which is odd, but we have had some foul weather recently which could have contributed. The finer weather now seemed to be having an affect on the cormorant chicks, several of which seemed to have died from exposure. Other nests are suspiciously empty, but it seems that some of those may have fledged young, judging by some of the very young birds I saw perching amongst the trees. Others are still full of almost grown young, and still others have tiny chicks that can only have hatched in the last week, so there’s a diverse age range in the colony.

After I took my records, I had a tip from Morten about a pond where red necked grebes had bee; successful in hatching a chick, and I spent a pleasant hour there watching and filming the small family. This made me late for dinner but thankfully Igor and Jonas had made a bbq and there was more than enough left for me when I arrived. After a pleasant, but late night, Michele and I went to bed early in preparation for ringing tomorrow.