As the day before, the team of the bird observatory divided to cover both ringing and observations. I was out with Knud at Verdens Ende 3 and we observed the morning movement of gannets (sule), common scoters (sortand) and great skuas (storkjove) over Kattegat and Skagerrak. The wind came from the South, which meant that we were sitting protected behind the dune and had an awesome view towards the sea. In comparison with yesterday it was a relieve to sit leeward and get warmed by the morning sun. The birds were not as active as the day before, but around 400 gannets (sule) were fishing close to the beach - a real “gannet-bonanza” how Knud called it. On the tip were also 6 harbour seals (spætted sæl) resting together with gulls (måge) and sanderlings (sandløber).

The best bird of the morning was a young Mediterranean gull (sorthovedet måge), that was resting on the beach, when we first spotted it. Knud was eager to try out his new camera that arrived 2 days earlier and went down to the shore to take some pictures:

Simon, Judith, Yehonatan, Erik and Lis ringed at Kabeltrommelkrattet with the highlight being many chiffchaffs (gransanger) and one meadow pipit (engpiber), while Michael ringed at Jennes Sø and had 13 lesser repolls (lille gråsisken).

In the afternoon, Judith and I went swimming and today the sunny weather made is easier for us to get into the cold water. Many red algae have stranded at the beaches at the light house in the last couple of days.

Later, I fixed some of our bicycles including the new one that Tage kindly donated and showed some tourists around the observatory, while Simon made dinner!

Ringing (Kabeltrommelkrattet + Jennes Sø):                                        

European Crested Tit – Topmejse – 1
Meadow Pipit – Engpiber – 1
Eurasian Blue Tit – Blåmejse – 2                
Eurasian Blackcap – Munk – 1
Great Tit – Musvit – 7
Common Chiffchaff – Gransanger – 19
Willow Warbler – Løvsanger (Song of songs) – 1
Goldcrest – Fuglekonge – 1         
Eurasian Wren – Gærdesmutte – 2
European Robin – Rødhals – 6
Common Reed Bunting – Rørspurv – 2                                   
Common Blackbird – Solsort – 1                
Eurasian Siskin – Grønsisken – 2                
Lesser Redpoll – Lille Gråsisken – 13

Total: 59

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Knud Pedersen, Erik Brodersen & Lis Kragelund, Michael Ancher, Tage (thank you!).

Today Simon was away on a nice tour about the trees and forst of Byfogebskovel led by Paul held Mortensen and joined him, our friendly neighbors Erik Brodersen & Lis Kragelund.

Meanwhile me Judith went to open up the nets in Sardinkrattet together with the help of Knud pederses. It was the first time that I am leading the ringing here in Skagen and it was very nice  and exiting for me. We had a nice ringing with bird coming every round so we closed the nets only around 11:30. The highlights for me was a flock of around 10 Yellowhammers (Gulspurv) but most of then escaped when we arrived to the net… but we still got some of them, and also a one of the first  Goldcrest (Kongefugle)  for the season.

The ringing ended up with 46 birds (2 recaptures)

Gærdesmutte   -   7    -  Wren

Rødhals     -      4       -  Robin

Rørsanger    -     5     - Reed warbler

Munk    -   4    -   Blackcap

Gransanger  - 9   -  Chiffchaf

Løvesanger   - 1  -   Willow warbler

Fuglekonge   -  1  - Goldcrest

Blåmejse    -   5  -   Blue tit

Bogfinke     -   1   - Chaffinch

Gulspurv   -   3    - Yellowhammer

Rørspurv   -  5   -  Reed bunting

Right after the ringing our new internship girl Stina came for her first time at the station, Simon showed her around the station and the exhibition and then me and Judith showed her around the CES site and how the ringing is working. She also had a chance to see a Common scoter (Sortand) that was brought to us while she was found on the beach. The scoter was just fine and probably was just a little tired.. we gave her a nice ring and let it back to water when it had some rest.

Right after we set the Scoter free we used the nice day that we had and went to beach t play volleyball!

We some very close and nice games and a nice afternoon for all of us.

Later on we came back, had some hot showers and a nice dinner made by Christian and a good night sleep that was very need after this long and busy day with a lot of activities.

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Knud Pedersen, Erik Brodersen & Lis Kragelund, Jens Kirkeby.

Yesterday evening Christian and Yehonatan went out for nightcatching. They managed to catch a Dunlin (Almindelig ryle)! The bird was feeding on the tip of Grenen, while they discovered him.

Early in the morning Christian, Knud and Lars went out for observations in worlds end III. The highlights were 2 european shags (topskarv), 1 pomarine skua (mellemkjove) and 68 brand geese (knortegås). So, the ending of the storm and the nice warm weather now is pretty good for doing observations, it is not that cold outside anymore and the birds are coming closer to the beach.

There are also two rarities in the area around Grenen at the moment. The american scoter (amerikansk sortand) was seen yesterday and today, and a lapland bunting (lapværling) was discovered today.

In the meanwhile, Yehonatan, Simon and I went for ringing to Kabeltrommelkrattet. The first day after the stormy weather where it was calm enough to open the nets again. But contrary to our expectations the birds was not very active. In sum we caught 19 individuals in 3,5 hours. The dominant species were robins (rødhals) and wrens (gærdesmutte). While we were ringing one of our highlights, a song trush (sangdrossel), we heard a pheasant calling from the location of our mist nets. However, when we checked the nets it was not in there but keep going calling in the shrubs next to our nets. Another highlight, this time not related to birds, was a fox really close to our Kabeltrommel-tabel. She was watching us and did not mind when we came near to her. I guess she was hoping for some food, but that did not work.

We also had many visitors today while ringing: Our guests in the apartment Lis and Erik joined us and were really interested in our work. Furthermore, two german tourists were passing by, and two local birdwatchers was also talking to us for a while. As we already stopped the ringing at 10 o´clock because we had no more birds in the nets, I had time to join Christian and Knud doing their observation at the tip. It was very nice to watch the birds in this (for Denmark) warm temperatures.

When Christian and I came back to the station we went for a swim. We were looking forward to go in such a fine weather, but as soon as we touched the water we were not warm any longer – today the water was even colder than the last days. But we still managed to go into the sea and used the very calm water for a little longer swim. And not only we were enjoying the sun, also a young seal was lying next to us on the beach in the sun.

Wednesday is cleaning day, so after cleaning the whole apartment, birders club and laboratory everything is now gleaming again. In between a bus tour from Sjælland arrived and Simon, Yehonatan and I showed them around and told them something about our work here and how we do the ringing of the birds.

While Yehonatan prepared some delicious pasta, Christian and I used the nearly windless courtyard to play volleyball. Let´s hope that the wind will still slow down the next days, so we can put up the net on the beach and play a volleyball game with the whole station team.

Ringing (Kabeltrommelkrattet, Grenen):

Chiffchaff – Gransanger - 1

Willow warbler – Løvsanger - 2

Blue Tit – Blåmejse - 2

Common Whitethroat – Tornsanger – 1

Reed Bunting – Rørspurv – 2

Robin – Rørhals – 5

Wren – Gærdesmutte – 3

Dunnock – Jernspurv – 2

Song Trush – Sangdrossel – 1

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Knud Pedersen, Erik Brodersen & Lis Kragelund, Jens Kirkeby.

We still had strong north-western gales this morning – too strong to put our mist nets up. So instead Knut and I went out for observations from sunrise at Denmark’s northernmost observation point. Our hopes were high that the winds would bring some good numbers of common species and maybe one or two uncommon or rare birds. As soon as our telescopes were pointed towards the sea, we saw a constant stream of fulmars (mallemuk) passing to the northwest at the horizon. Gannets (sule) also showed in good numbers and the typical early morning movement of common scoters (sortand) and red-throated divers (rødstrubet lom) from Kattegat to Skagerrak was also visible. So a hit on numbers, but what about rarities? Well it was hit and miss this time. We got two smart migrating long-tailed skuas (lille kjove), but somehow managed to miss a Sabine’s gull (sabinemåge) that other observers found. Anyhood, we were happy with 2481 gannets (sule), 969 fulmars (mallemuk) and 120 red-throated divers (rødstrubet lom) migrating northwest in five hours, during which Yehonatan, Lis and Erik joined us for a short while, too.

Counts of migrating fulmar (mallemuk), gannet (sule) and great skua (storkjove) this morning.

During the same time, Judith collected some plants for the herbarium she plans to prepare during her stay at the observatory. It is now getting late for some of the flowering plants, so she wants to use her time in the rest of the week to focus on collecting cool plants. Judith uses the heavy books (“The Danish bird migration atlas”) from our library to compress the plants. Really good, that the books are finally put to good use! :-P

In the afternoon, Simon gave us a small tour around the observatory and had some tips and tricks regarding care of tourists coming to The Grey Lighthouse (Det Grå Fyr). Afterwards we had a seminar about subspecies identification of chiffchaffs (gransanger) and the pitfalls connected to that. A small session on aging chiffchaffs based on moulting strategies followed.

To refresh from the dry theoretical talk, Judith and I took our daily swim in Kattegat. There was a lot of red algae stuff in the water, which was a little disgusting. And Judith was so unlucky to hit a lion’s mane jellyfish (brandmand) and suffered the rest of the evening from that encounter.

Suddenly we heard through the grapevine, that an American scoter (amerikansk sortand) was found at the seal bunker, just a couple of hundred-meter north of the lighthouse. Yehonatan went out to find it and took some record shots. This individual might very well be the same bird that was seen for a couple of days at Nordstrand and Grenen in July (which in turn could be the one seen there as well in April). There cannot be too many birds of this American species around here…

Male American scoter (amerikansk sortand) on the left; picture: Yehonatan Ben Aroia

Just after finishing this blog entry (dagbogen), Yehonatan and I will go out for night catching. Wish us luck to get something!

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Knud Pedersen, Lis Kragelund and Erik Brodersen

Music: The Dear Hunter – Migrant

Still very windy days now, between 15-20 meters per second but a little slower than yesterday that was vert strong. So this morning we split, Christian and Judith went for observation together with Knud Pedersen on the tip and I was walking on the beach from the observatory going north by foot trying to find some passerines and taking some photos. After yesterday was kind of slow day for birds, today was a little better with some nice movement of Red throated diver and nice numbers of Fulmars.

While I was walking on the beach I didn’t find many birds but I did see some nice Rock pipits feeding on the beach together with some Golden and Grey plovers.

After we all finished the observations, we went to the ringing sites to check if the strong winds have done any damage to the nets and our equipment. We had one net that needed fixing in the new ringing site but other than that our nets standing still and ready for ringing when the winds will slow down!

Then in the afternoon we all had some very needed sleep after long morning field work, Chris and Judith went for the daily swim and I stayed for some indoor work. Later we went shopping had a nice dinner tnx to Christian and had our evening meeting with our lovely neighbors Erik brodersen and Lis Krag that decided to join us after the meeting for night catching on the beach.

Soon after the meeting we left ready for some walk on the beach looking for roosting birds.

Almost instantly me and Judith spotted something weird on the rocks. It was very weird looking and wasn’t really moving while the waves hit it. I climbed on the rock and got very close to the bird that didn’t really care from me and very first I caught the first Great cormorant for the station!

We came back to station in less than 10 minutes with a bird! we took some measurements and ringed the bird that after some discussion we decided it’s a 3^rd calendar female.

After we finished with the bird we let it go back on the rocks and it flew to the same spot that we caught it.

Christian and Yehonatan was already looking forward to going out to the tip for observations. But due to rain in the morning, they had to wait inside for a while. Despite the storm they started at 7 am. The highlight was a Black-throated Diver (Sortstrubet Lom) and a really high number of Red-throated Divers (Rødstrubet Lom), in total 81.

In the meanwhile, I was sleeping a little bit longer to be fit for the ‘Gannets Day’. In this event Simon and I showed visitors the gannets at the tip and the guests got the opportunity to observe them with their binoculars and one scope. The tip in Grenen is one of the best places in Denmark to watch Gannets from such a short distance. They are seeking for fish in the turbulent sea where the two seas Kattegat and Skagerrak collide. Afterwards we showed a movie about plastic pollution and the risk of fishing nets for birds in general and especially for gannets. The event ended with a delicious ‘Gannet-Soup’ and a beer.

At noon Chris and I used the sunshine to go swimming in the sea. Unfortunately, we could not really feel the warmth of the sun because the wind was really strong and cold. But at least we managed going during the day and not in the evening with lower temperatures and much more wind. Nevertheless, we needed some hot tea and a warm blanket to get warm afterwards.

In the afternoon the ongoing storm with the record speed of 72 kilometre per hour kept us in the house. So Chris and I checked all the ringing data to avoid mistakes in the database and Chris welcomed our new guests in the apartment and showed around. Yehonatan was reading a book about ringing and rested a little bit to be fit again for making a delicious dinner for all of us.

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Knud Pedersen, Pennille Roed, Athena V. Jensen, Lis Kragelund and Erik Brodersen

Before sunrise, Simon, Yehonatan and Judith went ringing in Kabeltrommelkrattet. It was a good morning with 34 birds, but only a few species (see list below) with dunnocks (jernspurv) being the no. 1 species today. The new net, that we installed yesterday, caught 5 birds – so it seems to be indeed at a good place.

In the meanwhile, Knud and I were doing migration counts at the outermost dune row of Grenen. We had a little less wind than yesterday, but with 11m/s it was still quite strong. Opposed to yesterday, many different seabirds came by in good numbers and we managed to pick out some specialities as well: One first year Mediterranean gull (sorthodet måge) flew along the beach, one shag (toppskarv) migrated not far out on the sea to the northwest and two long-tailed skuas (lille kjove) followed suite. When looking at rough numbers, gannets (sule) were dominating with 626 migrating northwest followed by over 550 common scoters (sortand) in different directions. 262 kittiwakes (ride), 92 great skuas (storkjove) and 63 fulmars (mallemuk) kept us busy counting as well. Later, Judith and Yehonatan joined us for the last hour of observation after they had finished ringing.

During noon, Simon had a guided tour back at the observatory for a group of hairdressers. Too bad, that Simon already cut Yehonatans hair yesterday... (it looks good, though!)

In the afternoon, a German journalist came for a visit to the Grey Lighthouse on his journey from Ribe to Skagen. Judith and I were showing him around our exhibition, the birder’s club and went also up the lighthouse with him. Now we are curious what he will write about us, but the article won’t be published before next year.

In the meanwhile, Yehonatan did some office work and managed to keep the number of unsorted pictures in our ever growing picture archive low!

Our daily swim is now starting to cost us quite an effort. On days like today, when we have plenty of action going on, we only have time in the late afternoon, when the air temperature has already dropped. The Kattegat has also gotten noticeable cooler since the middle of August. Still, we are determined to swim and with some exercise like running on the beach, we manage to get warm enough to spent several minutes swimming among the waves.

Ringing (Kabeltrommelkrattet, Grenen):

Common Chiffchaff – Gransanger - 6
Willow Warbler - Løvsanger (Song of Songs) - 1
Common Reed Bunting – Rørspurv - 2
Common Whitethroat - Tornsanger - 2
Eurasian Blackcap – Munk - 3  
Eurasian Blue Tit – Blåmejse - 1
Dunnock - Jernspurv - 7
European Robin - Rødhals - 6 
Eurasian Reed Warbler - Rørsanger - 6

Total: 34

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Knud Pedersen, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Anders & Agnethe.

Music: Wovenhand - Mosaic

We wanted to go ringing today but after looking at the forecast and seeing that very strong winds are coming (up to 45 km per hour) so this morning we decides not to go ringing. So instead me Christian and Judith went to do some morning observations together with Knud Pederson at worlds end 3. we woke up at 05:30 and took some equipment with us and left it in our new ringing site (Kabeltrommelkrattot)  so we can start working on a new net lane right after the observation.  The morning was very cold with some strong winds, good for sea bird but cold for us! We had a nice observation of a Fulmar that was very close to the beach, some good kittiwake migration numbers (176) and just before we left we had a nice Hen harrier coming from the sea to finish the morning!

After comparing our numbers with Knud so we can be sure we all saw the same birds, we went to the ringing site to cut up a new net lane for net that was already in the field but in the few last ringing seasons that we had there we got the idea that this new isn’t really working so good… so after talking about a few spots to move the net, we went up there and cut a nice lane in a place that looks really nice! Now we only need to see how good it works on tomorrows ringing.

When we got back to the observatory we had nice lunch, Chris and Judith put in the data from the morning observation and we all had some rest before the evening.

Then we took the evening meeting, had a really nice dinner that Christian made and then some sleep before tomorrows ringing.

Today my morning started with observations at the dunes next to the sea. The weather was, apart from the wind, very good. I used the observation time to solidify all the knowledge I have already learnt here at the station by identifying the sea birds and repeating the english species names and the most important characteristics. Because it was raining yesterday evening there were some water paddles on the beach - unexpectedly nearly without waders. During the morning only a few Red Knots (Islandsk Ryle) and Ringed Plovers (Stor Præstekrave) showed up. In and above the sea the species were more numerous. Gannets (Sule) and Common Scoters (Sortand) could be find nearly everywhere. By taking a closer look behind the waves Redthroated Loons (Rødstrubet Lom) and a Redbreasted Merganser (Toppet skallesluger) appeared.

Furthermore, the first Longtailed Skua (Lille Kjove) in this year was seen in Grenen and the Barred Warbler (Høgesanger) from yesterday is still in the area.

Christian, Yehonatan and Simon went for ringing to Sardinkrattet. The first two rounds were really good and especially many Robins (Rødhals) and Dunnocks (Jernspurv) were caught. Unfortunately, in the next rounds were not many birds catched and they already thought about closing the nets a little bit earlier. However, the decision to go further with the ringing was worth it. In the last round only one bird was in the net, but this was a big highlight: a Common Crossbill (Lille Korsnæb). A beautiful species that we rarely catch even though there are flocks of them coming everyday on migraton attempts

(Picture: Yehonatan Ben Aroia)

Back in the observatory station we opened the fridge on search for some food for lunch and realized that we have to go shopping. So, Yehonatan and I took the bike and went to Skagen, of course with wind against us.

After Christian had a short nap, and I had checked the nets in the old lighthouse garden we went for a swim. The refreshing water helped us to feel awake again and so we were ready to do some computer work and put the ringing data into the database.

In the evening we had a delicious curry, prepared by Yehonatan.

Ringing (Sardinkrattet, Grenen):

Dunnock – Jernspurv: 5

Robin – Rødhals: 11

Common Redstart - Rødstjert: 4

Reed warbler – Rørsanger: 3

Eurasian Blackcap - Munk: 5

Common Chiffchaff - Gransanger: 2

Willow Warbler - Løvsanger: 3

Great tit - Musvit: 1

Common Crossbill - Lille Korsnæb: 1

Total: 35

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Anders & Agnete, Knud Pedersen, Jørgen Kabel, Igor.

This morning the team divided to cover both seawatching and ringing. While Knud and Yehonatan did observations from Worlds End 3, I joint Simon and Judith for ringing. It was rather windy, so we had to make sure that the nets were not entangled in the bushes and we were a little unsure if we would catch many birds. That was however nothing to worry about. We ringed 33 birds and among them several “not-everyday” species. The highlight was the male, first calendar year bluethroat (blåhals). Bluethroats are not captured every autumn and we suspect that the one we caught belongs to the Northern subspecies “svecica”.

Bluethroat (blåhals)

A late marsh warbler (kærsanger) and an adult male reed bunting (rørspurv) in autumn plumage were also fine birds. The most caught species were robins (rødhals) followed by dunnocks (jernspurv). Judith ringed her first bird here at Skagen, which was also a robin (rødhals). Besides the ringing, a overflying grey wagtail (bjergvipstjert) and a red-backed shrike (rødrygget tornskade) gave us further notable birds.

Reed bunting (rørspurv)

The observation team (Knud + Yehonatan) had a rather slow morning with comparable little movement over the sea. However, a ruff (brushane) and a goldeneye (hvinand) were giving some needed distraction from the 680 great black-backed gulls (svartbag) and 400 gannets (sule).

Unnoticed from both teams, a smart barred warbler (høgesanger) was also seen at Grenen in the morning.

While we were out, Joost prepared his farewell. He worked on the picture archive and finished the protocols that we will use to continue his sound recordings.

Like every Wednesday, cleaning commenced on the afternoon. Warm from all the floor-scrubbing, Judith, Joost and I went for our daily swim. It had started to rain, and the Kattegat was really rough, but once in the water it wasn’t that cold anymore. This was also the last swim of Joost here, he left by train shortly after. Best of luck for your future endeavors in Brussels and Abisko, mate!

In the evening, Jens had a talk about Buthan. His talks are well-known: The birders club was full (we had to get extra chairs) and buzzed of excitement while waiting for his presentation. Of course he delivered. By not only focusing (as expected) on the many birds of the country, but also giving some insights on the Bhutanese culture and lifestyle. Maybe some guests are now considering a birding trip into this often-overlooked country!

Ringing (Kabeltrommelkrattet, Grenen):

Common Chiffchaff – Gransanger - 4
Willow Warbler - Løvsanger (Song of Songs) - 4
Common Reed Bunting – Rørspurv - 1
Whinchat - Bynkefugl - 1
Eurasian Blackcap – Munk - 3    
Bluethroat – Blåhals - 1
Dunnock - Jernspurv - 5
European Robin - Rødhals - 6   
Common Redstart - Rødstjert - 2   
Eurasian Siskin - Grønsisken - 1    
Lesser Redpoll - Lille Gråsisken - 1
Eurasian Reed Warbler - Rørsanger - 2    
Marsh warbler – Kærsanger - 1                   
Lesser Whitethroat - Gærdesanger - 1

Total: 33  

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Joost Van Duppen, Judith Kloibhofer, Knud Pedersen, Jens Kirkeby.

Music: Gregory Alan Isakov - That Sea, the Gambler