Following yesterday’s close encounter with a sandwich tern with a coloured ring which we were unable to read today, we had an important mission to accomplish: Read That Ring! It was also Yehonathan’s first morning at the station, so he was already eager for some action! Bear in mind he politely refused my suggestion of him having some rest after his long journey from Israel. More proof that the words volunteer and exhausted don’t work well in the same sentence. A flock of sandwich terns was spotted soon after the search began and lucky enough the tern with the coloured ring from yesterday was one of the flock members! We immediately set off to read the ring. The weather was very windy which gave us the opportunity to get close to the flock from downwind. We were happy to find out that two more terns in had metal rings on them – three out of twenty-seven is a great ratio. One by one we got on all fours and started slowly crawling towards the flock in order not to startle them. We were equipped with the trusty Swarovski telescope, a pair of bins and a field notebook. We took TERNS looking through the scope as the wind made it increasingly difficult as time passed. Two times the birds took off and gave us mini heart attacks thinking we wouldn’t get a chance this good again. Fate smiled on us both times as the terns peacefully descended after being started by a sudden strong gust of the wind.

Our first success came when we read the coloured ringed – V97. One letter and two numbers that brought us so much joy. The next treat came when Yehonathan managed to take a high-res photo of the ring, always an amazing addition to any fieldwork! Our third treat was actually reading one of the metal rings which was on an adult tern. It took us a long time however we managed in the end.

Upon return, we undertook the weekly cleaning.

In the evening Simon treated us all to a lovely dinner (and a beer of course) in town. It was a refreshing breath of the urban life that we have already forgotten. 

 People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Yehonathan Ben Aroya

After the successful night catching up with Simon and Martin we had some sleep and after 4 hours we got up to get ready for the next round. Martin and I prepared our scopes to go to the world's end for sightings and sandwich tern (splitter) ring readings. We got there when the sun had just begun to rise creating fascinating colorations on the little poodles on the beach. We quickly found a flock of sandwich terns and started trying to read some rings. It took us a while until we got something out of it since the birds, as if they knew, were flying away just when we started reading the first letters. . .

Besides that, there were many birds flying around big flocks of Red knots, dunlins (ordinary ryle), sanderlines (sand runners) and some turnstones (rock faces) and ringed plovers (big clay collar) were making my day! We also spotted the young ringed plover we called a few weeks ago and made sure he was perfectly fine, practicing the art of flight. The usual suspects: gannets (great), great black-backed gulls (blackbags) and herring gulls (gulls) were foraging over the sea while Great schuas (stork jove) were hunting them down.

When we came back we were happy to see that Andreas was here, who came by the station to say hi! We all sat together had a coffee and talked. Heidi was already preparing dinner since she was making home-made pizzas and she was making the dough.

The new ringing site near Grenen is being created while we started cutting the lines for the nets and we are really hoping that this site will bring various and many birds into the nets!

Unfortunately, today is the last day of Heidi here in Skagen and we are all really sad…. We had a great time with her these two weeks were she was around! Besides really cool ringing with her beeing the leading ringer we also had nice evenings, bbq, moult sessions, video creations, birdwatching, guided tours ... We will miss her as well as her cooking skills! We all felt much better after trying here amazing creations. Vegetarian pizzas and a super cheesecake. (See you in Copenhagen;))

Late at night, we welcomed a new volunteer Yehonathan from Israel! Another birder in the house !! Looking forward to ringing and birdwatching with him.

 People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Yehonathan Ben Aroya

Vejrudsigten lovede byger og godt med blæst, så alle var indstillet på, at denne morgen desværre ikke skulle startes ud med ringmærkning. Men det betyder ikke altid, at man kan sove længe, man må i stedet udnytte sådan en blæsende morgen og tage på morgenobs. Så det gjorde Anders, Christina og jeg! På yderste klitrække mødte vi to andre morgenfriske folk, Knud Pedersen og Anders Bojesen. 

Efterårets vadefugletræk viste sig fra sin gode side med blandt andet stenvender, krumnæbbet ryle, islandsk ryle og næsten 50 hjejler. Desuden lå de to spektakulære brilleænder fint på havet foran os. Mens Christina og jeg nød de trækkende fugle, gik Anders en tur ned på stranden for at kigge nærmere på de rastende splitterner. Her fandt han en splitterne med farvering, som han formåede at få aflæst! Splitternen er mærket i Holland. 

Ole Friis Larsen har berettet på vores facebookside, at han for nyligt har mødt en tysk ringmærker i Blåvand, som var på udkig efter farvemærkede splitterner. Den tyske fyr er med i et tysk-hollandsk projekt, som mærker disse fugle. Gennem projektet har man fundet ud af, at splitternerne med farveringe bliver aflæst langt inde i Østersøen. Her i landet hersker der dog tvivl om, om fuglene trækker til Kattegat gennem Limfjorden eller kommer op forbi Skagen. Det kan være, at vi kan få aflæst nogle flere og være med til at løse et lille fuglemysterie! 

Mens vi andre slappede af derhjemme efter morgenens tur ud i blæsten, tog Martin sig af turisterne omkring stationen. Han fik snakket med en masse turister og formidlet informationer om Skagen Fuglestation og de smukke omgivelser. 

Til aften tog Christina, Martin og Simon ud i den ruskende blæst for at fange fugle på stranden. Og heldigvis var der gevinst: en ung Svartbag! Mågen blev studeret og ringmærket, inden den igen blev sat fri i blæsten på stranden. 

Folk: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Knud Pedersen, Anders Bojesen.

Da morgenen bød på en del byger brugte vi dagens tidlige timer på forskellige indendørsopgaver. Kl. 11 troppede to modige franskmænd op til denne uges LIFE-tur i det naturgenoprettede område vest for fuglestationen. Selvom turen blev en noget våd og dyrefattig affære kunne Martin og jeg servere friskplukkede mosebølle-bær og tranebær til de to deltagere. Tilbage ved fuglestationen viste vi dem de døde fugle i fryseren og vores ringmærkningslaboratorium, inden at de tilfredse drog videre mod Grenens spids.

Da vores tur var færdig tog Simon imod en gruppe på 35 historieinteressede pensionister, som kom for at få en rundvisning og høre om fyrets historie.

Heidi og Christina brugte meget af dagen på at lave en fin film om stor præstekrave, som kan ses på vores facebookside. Om eftermiddagen lavede Heidi desuden en lækker cheesecake med en gelé lavet på lokal havtorn. Ikke dårligt!

På trods af et fortsat ret ustadigt vejr over middag, besluttede jeg at prøve lykken på Grenen. Det viste sig at være en god beslutning idet regnen havde skabt flere småsøer på stranden, som tiltrak mange måger, terner og vadefugle. Ved min ankomst var den første fugl jeg fik øje på en fin ungfugl af sorthovedet måge, som blev hængende i området resten af eftermiddagen. I løbet af fem timers observationer blev det også til 7 almindelige kjover, 11 storkjover og 10 vadefuglearter. Det føltes fedt for første gang siden min ankomst, at se så mange fugle på Grenen, og det gav en dejlig fornemmelse af at efteråret for alvor er ved at starte. Let the party begin!

Ungfugle af sorthovedet måge er i sandhed delikate på trods af deres ikke så markante farver.

Folk: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen

After our amazing barbeque the previous night and the constant rain our sleep was cosy and refreshing! Shortly after getting up I saw several rays of sunlight trying to make their way through the clouds. That was all the encouragement I needed for a swim in Kattegat. It was considerably windy however the water was cool but welcoming. Half an hour later and one too many gulps of saltwater I was ready for a shower and some lunch! Having said that I really can’t recommend a daily swim enough, given the opportunity of course. For me personally the list of benefits is endless: it’s an awesome way to start the day, when it’s not too wavy it is great exercise and the cold water seems to have a cleansing effect on my mind. Just gets your thoughts arranged in the right way somehow, hard to describe really. Furthermore, since I’ve turned this into a daily challenge – going in the sea on its own gives me a boost in productivity knowing I’m a day closed to completing my challenge of swimming every day while I’m in Denmark!

After lunch the time came for our much-anticipated moult & identification session with Simon. The prep work which Simon gave us over the last couple of days was to choose several species to focus on. We chose identification. Namely differentiating between the common Reed warbler (Rorsanger) (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) and the rarer Marsh warbler (Kaersanger) and Blyth’s warbler (Buskrørsanger) (Acrocephalus dumetorum). The main goal was to be able to correctly identify the species based on their subtle morphological differences while in the field. Luckily Simon pointed us in the correct direction enabling us to find the appropriate literature which greatly aided our skills. We also spoke about how important it is to have in mind that rarer species of warblers may be caught in the area.

We then moved on to the taxonomic mess known as Phylloscopus. Here the focus was on differentiating the three common species: Chiff chaff (Gransanger) (Phylloscopus collybita), Willow warbler (Løvsanger) (Phylloscopus trochilus) and the Wood warbler (Skovsanger) (Phylloscopus sibilatrix) from rarer species from the South and East such as Dusky warbler (Brun Løvsanger)  (Phylloscopus fuscatus) and Hume’s leaf warbler (Himalayasanger) (Phylloscopus humei).

When we had reached the point where now new information could be absorbed Christina and I started discussing dinner. Since we take turns cooking each day, it takes a bit of creativity and prep work in order to prepare a meal that would please both vegetarians and meat-eaters. Just as our food brainstorming session was starting to bear fruit Simon told us to be ready to meet him at his house in an hour in order to meet his friend Andreas on time. Much to our surprise we were scheduled to be eating at his house in two hours. A gentle details our dear friend Anders neglected to mention at any point the previous days.. thanks Andreas.

The evening was lovely and relaxing. Andreas was an outstanding host and we are forever grateful for inviting us to his home!

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Sander HB Villumsen, Andreas Egelund Christensen.

Since I got here, the day has been getting shorter and shorter, therefore our alarm clocks go off an hour later than usual. Heidi and Martin were up at 4:00 o’ clock, preparing to open the nets, while me and Sander were going to meet them on the first round. Anders was going to observe migration on the hill of Worlds End with Rolf.

On our way to Grenen, just when the sun was rising, Sander and I, witnessed a mysterious misty morning with roe deers running around and slowly getting lost in the foggy scene. While walking on the sand dunes to get to the ringing site it was amazing to feel the huge difference in the temperature when we were higher, were it was warmer than lower were it was chillier on these small sand hills. Nature can be so surprising when moments like these appear and you can feel it around you.

Our ringing rounds had the same species as every other time, but in a larger variation. A little mix of everything, but this time we had a new species for autumn and this was the Yellowhammer. In the meantime, we got a message from Worlds End that a Red-backed shrike had been seen! Can’t wait to capture them in the nets, even if they are painful! :)

We had the pleasure also to learn something new out there, and if it wasn’t for our beloved moving encyclopedia a.k.a. Martin, we would probably never had observed it. An amazing natural phenomenon: A fogbow! Also known as a white rainbow. The fogbow's lack of colors is caused by the smaller water drops. Diffraction smears out colors that would be created by the larger water drops in a rainbow! As a result, the fog bow has only very weak colors, with a red outer edge and bluish inner edge.

After returning to the lighthouse, we did the usual indoor activities as well as going to the supermarket to get some stuff for our BBQ. We bought some fresh fish from the port which according to the meat eaters of the gang were very tasty! The evening was windy and cloudy, but we really enjoyed it!

Ringing (Sardinkrattet):

Reed warbler – Rørsanger - 1

Lesser whitethroat - Gærdesanger - 4

Blue tit - Blåmejse - 1

Marsh warbler - Kærsanger - 1

Icterine warbler - Gulbug - 1

Common whitethroat - Tornsanger - 8

Yellowhammer - Gulspurv - 1

Garden warbler - Havesanger - 1

Reed bunting - Rørspurv - 1

Chiffchaff - Gransanger - 2

Willow warbler - Løvsanger - 4

Total:    25

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Sander HB Villumsen.

Dagen startede endnu en gang i Sardinkrattet på Grenen, hvor bl.a. to brogede fluesnappere og en håndfuld løvsangere vidnede om, at returtrækket er i fuld gang for flere arter. 

Om eftermiddagen besøgte 40 udvekslingsstuderende udstillingen og caféen. Martin var hurtig til at spørge om de var interesserede i en rundvisning, hvilket resulterede i at han sammen med Christina og Heidi underholdte gruppen de efterfølgende par timer. Fryseren blev åbnet for at vise vores samling af dødfundne fugle og senere blev gruppen instrueret i at fange insekter med sommerfuglenet. Resten af dagen gik med at få indtastet og tjekket data, så alt nu er up to date.

Ringmærkning (Sardinkrattet):

Rørsanger 1
Gærdesanger 1
Tornsanger 2
Havesanger 1
Munk 6
Løvsanger 6
Gransanger 1
Broget fluesnapper 2
Musvit 1
Lille gråsisken 3

Total: 24

Folk: Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Sander HB Villumsen.

A standard 04:00 start for the station’s volunteers marked the start of our first August Wednesday. A division of labour was employed with Anders heading off to do migration counts from the observation site near the tip of Grenen while Christina and I headed straight for our ringing site. All the nets were open at 05:15 and at 05:45 we were joined by Simon for the first round. We only caught locally breeding birds with over 80% being common whitethroats (Tornsanger). In the meanwhile Anders saw mainly common species with the exception of four two-barred crossbills (Hvidvinget Korsnæb) and a parrot crossbill (Stor Korsnæb), hoping to catch them in our nets in the coming days if we’re lucky.

While we where in the field Rita came to the Observatory to help cleaning the 1'st floor. Thank you so much Rita! Back in the station Christina and I did the usual tasks such as data entry and updating the station’s social media. 

At 13:00 it was time for an open freezer session! Unfortunately, at that time it was raining heavily however I was joined by a young family who were very keen to learn about the life of birds. We also collected some of the drawings you visitors have made during their visit to the station and they are now available in the birders club :)

Ringing (Sardinkrattet):

Kærsanger - Marsh warbler – 1

Rørsanger – Reed warbler - 3

Tornsanger – Whitethroat - 18

Munk – Blackcap - 1

Gransanger – Chiff-chaff - 1

Løvsanger – Willow warbler - 2

Total: 26

Folk: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Niels Dentrup, Cathrine Finger og Rita Pate.

Due to wind and rain Simon and Anders got up at 06:00 to assess the situation. The weather was reasonably ok so the lights in our room were lit and several moments later Christina, Sander and I were up and having some breakfast. We split into two teams: Anders and Sander set off to observe & count migrating birds while Christina, Simon and I opened the nets at Grenen. During his time observing Anders recorded 120 golden plovers (hjejle) distributed in over 10 flocks as well as two two-barred crossbills (hvidvinget korsnæb) among the common species.

The whole ringing session was a fight against the weather with us trying to balance a plentiful catch with the safety of the birds. Overall, we caught 18 birds which was alright considering the weather. The session ended with a bang! The last bird caught and ringed was a young Jay (Skovskade). To me this is a bird that you can’t really appreciate until you hold it in the hand. Its physiology is absolutely stunning. Its strength and size can need to be experienced first-hand. Speaking of hands the bite and claw marks on our hands after this encounter were a great way for us to remember the session.

Upon returning to the station I had a quick bite while Anders was opening the nets in the garden in preparation for our free ringing tour funded by the LIFE project. Upon entering the courtyard, I saw 16 people eagerly listening to Andreas’ introduction! Always great to see people devoting time from their holiday to nature and learning! Since it was 13:00, hot and windy our expectations were met when the nets remained empty. As usual I grabbed all the swoop nets and distributed them between the visitors. Throughout the tour Anders and I took turns discussing various topics and showing the visitors different flora and fauna from the region. We managed to catch quite a few dragonflies, damselflies and butterflies. I also took the opportunity to mention the difference between grasshoppers and bush-crickets as well as how to determine the sex of Orthoptera. After the tour was over some of the participants joined us in the lab in exploring the various birds that we have in our freezer !!!

In the afternoon we used our last remaining energy to enter the data collected during the day in the online database and I had my daily swim in Kattegat. The water was lovely and it was my first day without a sting by a lion’s mane jellyfish.

Ringing (Sardinkrattet):

Skovskade - Jay - 1

Tornsanger - Whitethroat - 6

Munk - Blackcap - 2

Gransanger - Chiff-chaff - 2

Musvit - Great tit - 1

Gærdesanger - Lesser whitethroat - 2

Total:   14

 Folk: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Niels Dentrup og Cathrine Finger.

Da vejrudsigten forudså gode betingelser for ringmærkning, besluttede vi at gennemføre den 10. CES-runde denne morgen. Endnu en gang var det ungfugle som dominerede fangsten og igen blev tornsanger den absolutte topscorer med 10 ringmærkede fugle, som alle var klækket denne sommer. Undervejs havde vi en guidet tur for fem børn og deres mødre, som til deres store fornøjelse fik set de fleste af morgenens ringmærkede arter. 

Resten af dagen gik med dataindtastning og for mit vedkommende med en eftermiddagstur til Grenen. Fuglemæssigt skete der ikke meget ud over en storkjove og de to brilleand hanner, som atter var på plads. Det bedste blev derimod en strandtudse, som jeg næsten trådte på da jeg var på vej hjem. Det er sjældent at jeg har set disse nataktive dyr i dagslys, og jeg brugte derfor lejligheden til at tage lidt fotos under naturlig belysning.

Kamouflagen fejler intet hos den lille strandtudse! Bemærk den karakteristiske gule stribe langs med rygraden.

Ringmærkning (Jennes Sø):

Skovpiber 1
Rødhals 2
Solsort 2
Rørsanger 3
Gærdesanger 2
Tornsanger 10
Havesanger 1
Gransanger 4
Løvsanger 3
Blåmejse 3

Total: 31

Folk: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Niels Dentrup og Cathrine Finger.