Dagen startede med meget blæst så det var desværre ikke muligt at åbne nettene for at fange fugle til at ringmærke. Michele og jeg tog i stedet ned til stranden, for at kigge på fugle, mens Peter gjorde orden i fugle - og andre naturbilleder på computeren. På stranden stødte vi på en svag fløjlsand som måske var blevet ramt af noget, men ellers virkede i fin stand. Den blev båret med tilbage til laboratoriet hvor Simon ringmærkede den og derefter blev den sat tilbage ud i havet hvor den svømmede fint videre. Ude på stranden nær fuglestationen så vi også fire strandskader komme flyvende. Senere, på Grenen så vi blandt andet både fjordterner, havterner, splitterner, en almindelig ryle, flere stor præstekrave med nuttede unger, sildemåger, toppet skalleslugere, suler og mange sortænder der svømmede langt ude på havet. Om eftermiddagen blev der handlet og ordnet flere billeder. Aftensmaden bestod af lækker omelet og luksus æggemadder lavet af Simon og efter maden spillede vi ”Shuffle ball” og selvom Peter ikke var helt tilfreds med det vandt jeg to gange ? Tredje gang vandt jeg dog ikke som ellers ville have givet mig lov til at klippe hans hår til en hanekam. Den ære fik Simon og det blev et ganske fint resultat. Næste for tur til klipning er Michele, selvom han vist ikke er helt enig.

Birds ringed

Velvet Scoter

The day started (in fact didn’t finish until) at 12am, with us all waiting in the dark for nightjars to fly into mist nets. Unlike last week our catch rate was only 1 bird for the entire time we were there, but just seeing one in the hand was a great experience for all of us, despite the fact we’d done this less than a week ago.

4 hours later (!) Michele and Kirstine were opening the observatory garden nets, for a brief attempt at ringing. 2 birds were caught. I on the other hand was leading a tour for a pair of American tourists, who also managed to see the bird ringing before we went. As expected it was a quiet tour, but as they were not from Europe, pretty much all the birds were new for them. The eider were their particular favourites. The most important and generous part of the morning was when Arne Rasmussen donated two bikes in very good condition to the Observatory. Michele was most pleased, especially as he had to cycle back from the cormorant with a totally flat tyre today! Thank you Arne, they’ll be a great help.

After our respective duties, we all hit the sack for some much needed shuteye, after
less than four hours sleep! Refreshed, we undertook the weekly cleaning of the apartments, a job made much easier by the fact that there were three of us to share the tasks. Michele and Kirstine then headed to the cormorant colony to undertake the bi weekly counts and then to town for much needed supplies, both edible and electrical. I updated the daily log. Kirstine cooked us some delicious veggie burgers for dinner (very nice not to be the only vegetarian in the Obs, even if only for a week).

The weather was looking particularly bad for the morrow, so with ringing (if any) restricted to the Obs garden, I decided tonight was a good night to go out listening for spotted crakes, or Savi’s warbler or even better maybe a river warbler!

I was wrong. The wind was too strong and I heard no birds at all. However mammals were well represented with four hares, and roe deer AND my first ever live polecat! Presumably the same individual Morten saw several weeks ago. Great sighting however and well worth the birdless bike ride!

Birds Ringed

Blackcap – 1
Lesser whitethroat - 1

Tirsdag d. 12. juni begyndte kl. 5.00 på fuglestationen hvor vi stod op, spiste hurtig morgenmad og bagefter gik ud til skovområdet på Grenen for at ringmærke. Vi satte net op og fangede i alt 11 fugle hvoraf 2 tidligere havde været fanget på samme sted, så det blev til 9 ringmærkninger i alt. Selvom de alle var fine var især dompap-parret specielle for denne dags fangst. Kort før vi lukkede nettene sammen igen kom Simon forbi med en gruppe pædagogstuderende fra Hjørring som fik en guidet tur i området. Efter kl. 10 blev nettene lukket og trætte men glade gik vi hjem til fuglestationen, hvor Peter med det samme blev shanghajet af Flemming til en guidet tur for sin familie fra USA. Michele og jeg kunne hvile os inden turen gik til skarvsøen hvor der findes en stor flok ynglende skarver som skulle tælles. Her var vi også heldige at se to par ynglende gråstrubet lappedykker og med teleskopet kunne vi endda se nogle af æggene i den ene rede! Desværre var nogle af skarvrederne tomme – måske fordi ræven havde været forbi. Hjemme på fuglestationen igen kom Rita Pate, en god ven af os på fuglestationen, forbi med en stumtjener og en friskfanget havkat. Udover fisk bestod aftensmaden af lækkert italiensk pasta med tomatsauce, kokkereret af italieneren Michele. Efter vi havde spist holdt vi et aftenmøde inden vi tog på natravnetur for at fange og ringmærke dem.

June 11th

Wind! It was too windy to open any nets and really too windy to visit the cormorant colony today. So after an extra hour or two in bed (snatch those mornings when you can at a bird observatory!) it was time for lots of computer admin. Ringing data, Dofbasen and diary posts were the order of the morning, along with photo archive work.

Kirstine Lund arrived in the afternoon, she’ll be working with us for a week. After working our way through double checking the ringing data, we sorted our ‘in the field’ paperwork before having a moult lecture in the birders club from Simon. Sadly it was cut short for me as I had to cook dinner. After dinner, Simon, Michele and Kirstine went out for an evening seawatch and found Michele’s first Canada goose and Arctic Skua. Not bad for mid June!

Once again, early to bed, ready to ring on the morrow . . .

The weather was calm and warm this morning, though not as hot as previous weeks (thankfully). The Grenen ringing site was drying out, to the point where we might not need waders anymore (for which Michele will no doubt be pleased, they’re very hot and difficult to move in). We were on site for about 4 hours, during which we ringed 13 birds and recaptured 3, though only local birds. The main highlight of the day however was a stunning male rosefinch we caught. We’d seen him (or possibly another) fly over our heads singing earlier on the morning, and then found this bird in the nets on the opposite side of the site. It’s been quite a good year for movement of this species, and is the third we’ve caught, but the first male, so quite a treat.

Other than that it was fairly unspectacular (as we expect for most summer days here, but June can turn up the odd extreme rarity which is always in the back of our mind) and we closed at normal time. The weather set in mid afternoon, so plans for birding, in particular observations of the breeding bitterns of Skagen were delayed, and though I went out for it later, and did see both adults making feeding flights, I was rained off quickly . .
We intended to go out ringing on Monday, so once again, early nights, though the weather was looking iffy, so we weren’t certain of our chances. .

After a late morning (post nightjar ringing the night before) Simon attended a board meeting at 10am. Michele and I opened the garden nets in anticipation of a guided tour. However nothing seemed to be happening on that front so we closed, only to have a guy turn up for a guided tour! I took him around the ringing area and into the lab, following the usual procedure, though with my own twist, showing pictures of birds in the hand and the processes of ringing, to make the laboratory visits slightly more interesting. Currently working on an introductory video which may be better, but this was a good dry run. The visitor enjoyed his tour, even if we didn’t catch any birds.

We were then treated (I assume!) to lunch by the board, and I had some nice conversation with people I may not see again for a while. Forcing myself out of the café garden I went back to the Obs apartment and started work on updating the daily diaries (which had gotten out of sync due to the busy days we’ve had recently). Simon was as crazy busy as always, and was jetting off to Copenhagen by 5 o’clock and Michele spent an enjoyable afternoon searching for colour ringed gulls. Yours truly however, was still slogging through diaries. And there’s plenty more to come, various social media posts and data uploading still await me! We were early to bed again as we planned to ring Grenen well on Sunday.

The CES site was opened by 4.15 am and in 6 hours we caught 13 birds, including some local retraps (which is the point) and some interesting birds, including my first female siskin, presumably a local breeder. A white tailed eagle flew low over us, probably one of the three seen late yesterday. We wrapped up at 10.15 am and headed back to the observatory. The sign was out for another English guided tour, which did get some interest but only for the following day. It was then getting equipment prepared for a nightjar ringing session that occupied our time. Net poles and lines, nets and playback devices had to be found and checked, as well as the ringing paraphernalia that we’d need.

A quick afternoon snooze (as we’d had an early morning AND were looking at a very late night) followed by a quick dinner and we headed off at 9.00. After a few hours on site, we caught our first nightjar, a male, which I got to ring. This was quickly followed by another, a female, and then later another female before we called it a day at 2.30am. The whole tI’m e we were treated to amazing flybys by up to three birds at a time. A successful evening, and possibly pencilled in in the near future for another try.

After a very appreciated extra few hours in bed (7am as opposed to 3.30!) I was up at the crack of. . . 9am! I was due to be leading a small tour for a couple of visitors from Philadelphia to see some birds. I didn’t hold much hope, as the birding had been thin on the ground for the last few days, and even the rosy starling invasion seemed to have dried up. I needn’t have worried though, after about 30 minutes of looking at butterflies and dragonflies (and the odd flower that I knew) there was a small kettle of raptors just above Ellekrattet. This included about 7 red kites, 3 honey buzzards and a bunch of buzzards, all of which were new birds for the Americans. So were the chaffinches we photographed inside the woods, before moving down to Grenen briefly. We caught up with a sparrowhawk out on the dunes, as well as the same moving flock of larger raptors, and the icing on the cake was as we arrived back at the Obs where we had an adult and 2k white tailed eagle circling overhead. Two satisfied customers headed off to the café after that!

Simon had a tour for a school group with learning difficulties, and Michele and he reported that it was a very successful morning, for a start they managed to get some birds in the hand for the kids, which doesn’t often happen when you really want it to!

After lunch, I introduced Michele to the cormorant colony and the procedure for surveying them. It was gratifying to see that the ‘predation event’ has slowed or stopped, with several nests that had seemingly been predated having birds back on them this visit. Down at the main colony there were several broods of well advanced chicks, which will hopefully fledge in a few weeks, especially if our furry friend decides to be as slothful in his approach as he has been. The red necked grebes had moved up to 6 nests (7 I hear from a local) and some are well on the way, so I look forward to seeing some stripey headed chicks at some point soon. As we left we were treated to the awesome sight of 3 white tailed eagles, 2 adults and a 2k very low overhead, which was great for Michele as the species had been new to him only last week!

Back to the Obs, and computer work and dinner awaited us, as cooked by Simon. As we were planning to do the CES ringing site on Friday, it was then very early to bed.

Once again an early start for the ringing duo. Straight out to Grenen to see what we could see. The conditions were as favourable as they could have been at this time of year but again we didn’t catch many birds. However we did get a few more retraps (this site is good for getting regular recaptures) including one, a blackcap, from Norway! Always a thrill to get a foreign retrap (see pic). So it was worth the early start and the insects! Also caught a reed warbler, which was nice an educational, practicing identifying them in the hand, BEFORE using the diagnostic criteria, using other features I’ve been taught during my time here. Gratifyingly I seem to have got the hang of that, despite not ringing them or marsh warbler before my time here . .

Once again there was an attempt to offer an ‘English’ guided tour, and once again, no takers, not surprising really as the birding season has totally wound down now. We’ll keep trying though, and who knows, June is a cracking time for rarities to turn up in Skagen whether in nets, or just flying over.

In the afternoon Simon left to go to Aalborg, Thomas left to visit his family, and I left to have a nice evening off in Frederikshavn. Which meant poor Michele was all alone that evening. I’m sure he appreciated the peace and quiet though!

The wind picked up through the night, leaving the option to go ringing pretty much out of our hands. So we thought we’d try and find some birds. Alas the wind was very strong all morning and in a couple of hours out on Grenen and then staring into Kattergat hoping for some skuas, we saw very little. Morten left for home by midday, after some last minute goodbyes to some locals.

The wind dropped eventually though, and we managed to get out and see some things, I watched the bitterns flying back and forth, presumably to feed some well grown chicks, and one of the local marsh harriers hunting opposite the cormorant lake. Birds of prey were very thin on the ground, with only two buzzards being the others I noticed during the day. We tried to run an ‘English guided tour’ of the ringing and ringing facilities, but there was no interest at all, clearly people were elsewhere today, and who could blame them in that wind? We’ll try again tomorrow. Later in the afternoon, we helped Michel Ancher erect a new net at the CES ringing site, and took some time to admire the surroundings once we’d finished (see pic).

Michele was the cook tonight and he taught Simon and Thomas (our guest) how an Italian makes REAL carbonara! After dinner we set up a moth trap. Now the summers hit, we may get some interesting species, though we’re secretly hoping for the most rock and roll moth, the Death’s Head, to pay us a visit.