The morning started when me and Judith woke up early around 5:30 and went to open up the nets in Kabeltromelkrattet and later Simon and Laia joined us for the first round around 7:00. First round was quite busy with around 20 birds, mostly Wrens-Gærdesmutte which was also the most common species that we caught this morning. Around 9 Simon had to leave the ringing for a nice tour he had back in the observatory for 7^th grade kids which was very nice. At this time, me Laia and Judith continued the ringing which was very nice when the sun came out. And in one of the last rounds I saw In the nets one of the birds that I waited a lot of time to see here in the ringing, a Redwing-Vindroussel! I got it out of the net right before it escaped, after we already lost a Jack snipe that escaped from the nets earlier in the morning….

We finished ringing in 12:00 and already at 13:00 our internship girl Stina arrived and we had a very quick lunch and right after went all of the volunteers together with the help of Stina back to Kabeltromelkrattet to cut new net lanes for 2 new nets. When we had so many people it went quite fast and easy and the new nets are up and ready for the next ringing.

After finishing cutting the net lanes and putting up the new nets I had to go and help Michael Ancher putting up the nets in Jennes Sø for the next day, but before that I had some free time, so I had a walk around the ringing area and the beach. I had some nice time with all of the very unique area before I leave in a few days.

A quite fresh and good condition Razorbill-Alk found dead on the beach and brought to the station collection.

Around 17:30 when we all finished our field work and had some rest, we had the evening meeting together and talked about the next days to come and our plans for the rest of the week. Later on we had a nice diner made by our lovely neighbors Ulla & Anders.

After dinner Simon showed us a nice presentation about his time in Ottenby bird  observatory and the amazing work they are doing there and also some amazing pictures of some of the rarities he had there following by wonderful leftover cake the Fleming brought us from the café and some tea. Nice evening!

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Ringing Kabeltromel 63 total birds.

Gransanger - 17

Gærdesmutte - 18

Fuglekonge - 11

Rørspurv - 9

Rødhals - 4

Blåmejse - 3

Vindrossel - 1

Today we split up again. Judith and Koen went for the observations at Verdens Ende 1 where they could see two Shags (Top Skarv) and a Sooty Shearwater (Sodfravet Skråpe) among other cool stuff.

At the same time, Yehonathan, Christian, Henning and I were ringing at Kabeltromelkrattet. The rain stopped the ringing as we had to close the nets but after this, some of us went out to the beach to observe the birds. Some Purple Sandpipers (Sortgrå Ryler), Lapland Bunting (Lapværling) and Reed Buntings (Rørspurve) were found but we had to stop due to the rain again.

When we came back, we found Rita. She was putting up together a hanger in order to hang our clothes. She also brought us some other very nice things. Thank you Rita!

Henning left the Observatory today but he will be back soon to ring with us.

Another important spot of today was the Greater Short-Toed Lark (Korttået Lærke) found late in the afternoon by Søren Skov. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to see it, but maybe it will stay until tomorrow?

Photo by Søren Skov

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlekrattet):

Rødhals 5

Sangdrossel 1

Blåmejse 1

Rørspurv 10

Gransanger 5

Gærdesmutte 7

Rørsanger 1

Fuglekonge 5

Jenspurv 1

Total 36

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Koen Stork, Laia Soler Iglesias, Henning Ettrup, Anders Jørgen Jensen, Ulla Popp, Rolf Christensen, Søren Skov.

We’re still with quite many people at the station so we splitted up again. Me, Yehonathan, Henning and Judith went ringing at Sardinkrattet while Laia and Christian were doing field observations at World’s End 3.

Yehonathan and me went up early to open up the nets and Henning and Judith joined later for the first round. The ringing was not very productive but we caught 18 birds including a 2cy+ Dunnock (Jernspurv). We took some photos of it. Most of the Dunnocks we catch here are young birds and therefore it’s good to have a proper look at the older birds we catch to get to grips with ageing. Interesting stuff. We caught a Reed Bunting (Rørspurv) as well, which is not really special to catch here but I took a few pictures to compare with pictures of Reed Buntings I have taken in Romania. It was very nice to see the different between the Black Sea subspecies and ‘our’ subspecies!

Many Reed Buntings (Rørspurv) roosting at Grenen these days

In the meantime, Laia and Christian were experiencing some Gannet (Sule) bonanza! They counted over 1,500 birds. The rest of the count was decent, but they expected to see more Great Skuas with this strong wind. Luckily, three Horned Larks on the tractor track made up for that! They had nice views of the birds as they were foraging around the track.

After lunch, most of us went out and all together we saw some good stuff such as a good count of Reed Buntings (Rørspurv) (even more than yesterday), Purple Sandpiper (Sortgrå Ryle) and again the Black Scoter (Amerikansk Sortand).

In the afternoon, me, Laia and Christian went to check on the garden nets if they were still in good shape. The evening before there was a discussion about how many nets there actually were in the garden. It was kind of a funny thing. There were seven nets in total and luckily they were all in good shape! It was also fun to see the garden for the first time!

Ringing (Sardinkrattet)

Wren – Gærdesmutte – 4
Dunnock - Jernspurv - 2
Robin - Rødhals - 5
Blackbird - Solsort – 2
Song Thrush – Sangdrossel – 1
Blackcap – Munk – 2
Goldcrest – Fuglekonge – 1
Reed Bunting – Rørspurv - 1

People: Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Laia Soler Iglesias, Koen Stork, Simon S. Christiansen, Henning Ettrup, Ulla Popp, Anders Jørgen Jensen.

Efter nogle dage med mørke skyer og til tider regnfulde morgener var solen atter fremme.

Vi er stadig mange på stationen – nu da der også er kommet gæster i lejligheden. Så vi delte os i et ringmærkerteam og observationshold. Yehonatan, og Laia startede tidligt med at åbne nettene, hvorefter Chris og Henning sluttede sig til ved Kabeltromlekrattet, ligesom Simon kom omkring et par gange. Laia fik sin første ringmærkning på stationen – en Fuglekonge. Koen og Judith tog sig af observationerne, mens der ikke blev mærket ved Jennes Sø.

Det blev en fin start på ringmærkningen, men efterhånden som solen kom højere på himmelen gik det helt i stå. Det blev til i alt 38 fugle – med Rødhals og Gransanger som hyppigste arter. Ingen overraskelser i dag. Eftermiddagen blev brugt til at klargøre 3 nye netbaner ved Kabeltromlekrattet.

Observatørerne havde ikke de store antal, men spredte observationer senere på dagen gav lidt forskellige fugle, bl.a. Lapværling, Stor Tornskade, Dværgmåge, Mosehornugle og Bjerglærke.

Om eftermiddagen skulle Chris, Laia og Judith absolut en tur i det 10 grader varme vand inden de skulle på tur med Simon og Køge Vinterbadeklub i Byfogedskoven inden dagen afsluttedes med en dejlig middag.

Ringing (Kabeltromlekrattet):

Dunnock – Jernspurv – 3
Robin – Rødhals – 12
Song Trush – Sangdrossel – 6
Blackcap – Munk – 2
Chiffchaff – Gransanger – 7
Reed Bunting – Rørspurv – 3
Goldcrest – Fuglekonge – 5

Total: 38

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Koen Stork, Laia Soler Iglesias, Henning Ettrup, Yvonne Feldskov, Anders Jørgen Jensen & Ulla Popp

We are many people at the station at the moment, so we can split up again. Yehonatan, Koen and I went to Jennes Sø to join Michael Ancher in ringing. Simon, Chris, Laia and Henning went to Kabeltromlekrattet to do the ringing there.

In Jennes Sø the ringing went very well. We had 66 birds, the most dominant species was Lesser Redpoll (Lille Gråsisken) with 44 individuals. Yehonatan was very happy about ringing his first Crested Tit (Topmejse). The observations between the rounds were also very good – we saw the Kingfisher (Isfugl) again, one Marsh Harrier (Rørhøg), some Goldfinches (Stillits), a flock of 60 Crossbill (Lille Korsnæb) crossing by and a Wood Mouse (Skovmus) trying to find some food in our backpacks. For Koen it was very interesting to study all the individuals of the redpolls as they show a big variety in the colouration.

Redpoll (Lille Gråsisken) - Picture by Yehonatan Ben Aroia

Crested Tit (Topmejse) - Picture by Yehonatan Ben Aroia

Wood Mouse (Skovmus) - Picture by Yehonatan Ben Aroia

The ringing group in Kabeltromlekrattet was joined by a 11-year old boy, Sander, from town. It was very exciting for him to see the ringing. After they catched a Barred Warbler (Høgesanger), more people came to the ringing side to watch the highlight. They were also very close to catch a Water rail (Vandriske) with the new trammelnets. So it seems like it is on the right place we just need some more luck. In total they caught 49 birds, which is a good number for Kabeltromlekrattet and the dominating species were Robins (Rødhals) and Blue Tits (Blåmejse).

Barred Warbler (Høgesanger) - Picture taken by Henning Ettrup

Back at the station Yehonatan found a nice card from Rita on the table. She gave him regards for the New Year`s Eve that is in Israel today – Thanks Rita! We will celebrate it in the evening with some traditional apples with honey and wine ;).

In the afternoon Chris hold a presentation with the title “The birds of Svalbard”. There we got a nice insight in the most common and interesting bird species in the high arctic. Some of the species we can also see down here in Grenen in Autumn, like the Pink-footed Goose (Kortnæbbet Gås), the Arctic Terns (Havterne) and the Fulmars (Mallemuk). Another mentioned species was the Snow Bunting (Snespurv), which is kind of the “House Sparrow” of Svalbard. If you would like to here more about that species, you are welcome to join his next talk on the 25^th of October at 19 o’clock.

Snow Bunting (Snespurv) nests - Picture taken by Simon S. Christiansen

And now it is time for dinner, it already smells good out of the kitchen :). And afterwards we will have a nice evening together with some games and celebrating the Israeli New Year’s Eve.

Ringing (Jennes Sø & Kabeltromlekrattet):

Wren - Gærdesmutte – 1

Dunnock – Jernspurv – 2

Robin – Rødhals – 16

Song Trush – Sangdrossel – 2

Barred Warbler – Høgesanger – 1

Blackcap – Munk – 3

Chiffchaff – Gransanger – 8

Willow warbler – Løvsanger – 2

Blue Tit – Blåmejse – 20

Redpoll - Lille Gråsisken – 45

Reed Bunting – Rørspurv – 5

Reed warbler – Rørsanger – 1

Goldcrest – Fuglekonge – 5

Crested Tit – Topmejse – 1

Great Tit – Musvit – 3

Total: 115

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Koen Stork, Laia Soler Iglesias, Henning Ettrup, Sander, Erik Christophersen, Jørgen Kabel, Poul Blicher Andersen, Alex Sand Frich, Yvonne Feldskov, Anders Jørgen Jensen & Ulla Popp

Friday night Yehonatan and I went night-catching at Grenen. Although it had rained quite a lot and puddles were on the beach, we didn’t meet any birds for the first hour. But despite that, two other observations were fascinating: First, when arriving at the waters edge, every single of our steps stimulated microscopic algae to exhibit bioluminescence, i.e. emittance of a greenish glow. The species is most likely Noctiluca scintillans, a planktonic dinoflagellate. We tried to take pictures or a video of this phenomena, but without a good camera our attempts were futile. I have tried many times to take pictures of northern lights with my mobile back in Tromsø, but the crappy phone-camera never managed to get them, which now was true regarding the mareel as well.

Shortly after, when I looked to the skies, my jaw dropped. There were actually northern lights visible! Not very strong, but clearly the moving bands of aurora borealis, which I have seen so many times further north. We were getting excited, even though the aurora had basically no colour whatsoever and it was only visible towards the northern part of the sky. We called back to the station and Michael and Koen went out to Grenen parking and managed to see it as well. Unfortunately, nobody took pictures – I’m sure that a good camera would have managed to catch some colour. Later, I looked up the solar activity and disturbance of the earth’s magnetosphere during the time of our observation. The Kp index, which is a way to measure the energy input of the solar wind hitting earth, was up to 5+ on Friday night, indicating a geomagnetic storm. Only at around this value the northern lights can be seen at Skagen, so we got really lucky with being out at that time and having clear skies. To be honest, I would have not guessed that I would see the northern lights once more this year.

After all the excitement due to the special light from below and above, we managed to catch a first year red knot (islandsk ryle) at the tip of Grenen, too!

The next morning, the observatory’s team split up in two groups to ring in both Jenne’s Sø and Kabeltrommelkrattet. Henning, Michael, Simon, Judith and I went to Kabeltrommelkrattet after the rain in the morning stopped and were happy to not get wet afterwards. The ringing itself was average, but in the meanwhile to hen harriers (blå kærhøg) and at least one calling penduline tit (pungmejse) were indeed fine birds to observe.

Michael, Yehonatan, Koen and Laia unfortunately got really wet at Jenne’s Sø and had to come back to the station to switch into dry clothes. After the rain stopped, they however got many birds into their nets – mainly lesser redpolls (lille gråsisken), which were attracted by their own calls played from speakers.

Laia also found some commom toads (skrubtudse), which she was really happy about.

On the afternoon, Rita came by and provided us with apples, pomegranate, honey and chocolate in anticipation of the the next day Jewish New Year celebration. Yehonatan told us that it is a tradition to eat fish heads on that day, but we will see if that is going to happen. Apples, pomegranate and honey seems to be the better (and also traditional) alternative.

The afternoon was dominated by indoor work – Laia, Yehonatan and Judith were working on our radar, while Koen and I developed the protocol for night recordings further. I also sat down to prepare my talk about Svalbards avifauna for the next day.

Ringing (Kabeltrommelkrattet + Jennes Sø):                                       

Meadow Pipit – Engpiber – 1
Eurasian Blue Tit – Blåmejse – 13              
Eurasian Blackcap – Munk – 3
Great Tit – Musvit – 1
Common Chiffchaff – Gransanger – 4
Goldcrest – Fuglekonge – 4       
Eurasian Wren – Gærdesmutte – 4
Dunnock – Jernspurv – 3
European Robin – Rødhals – 5
Common Reed Bunting – Rørspurv – 3                                 
Common Blackbird – Solsort – 1              
Song Thrush – Sangdrossel – 1
Common Chaffinch – Bogfinke – 1
Eurasian Siskin – Grønsisken – 3              
Lesser Redpoll – Lille Gråsisken – 49

Total: 96

People: Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Laia Soler Iglesias, Koen Stork, Simon S. Christiansen, Michael Fink, Michael Anker, Henning Ettrup, Rita Pate

Morgensobservationer og ringmærkning gik helt i vasken på grund af regn tilsat en kuling fra sydøst.

Tiden blev brugt på diverse indendørssysler indtil vinden ved frokosttid var aftaget til under 10 sekundmeter, og så var det ud.. Der var tydeligt flere småfugle i krattene og midt i regnen blev der fundet en Hvidbrynet Løvsanger i Ellekrattet nedenfor Klitbo, sammen med Fuglekonger, Broget og Grå Fluesnapper. Dagens regn medførte at strandsøen på ydersiden af klitten genopstod fra Nordstranden og helt ud mod Grenen.

Vinterdragts-Ride på Stranden

Yehonathan og Simon tog til området ved Buttervej efter regnen stoppede

Om eftermiddagen underviste Simon i forskellige racer af Gråsiskner samt i fældningsstrategierne arrested & suspended moult inden han kastede sig ud i tilberedelsen af Nationalretten.. ad libitum.

I det nu fine sene eftermiddagsvejr, blev den Amerikanske Sortand set flot fra stranden mellem Grenen og Sælbunkeren – og et kort øjeblik var der en ung Mellemkjove samme sted.

Vi er nu 8 personer på stationen. Folk: Laia Soler Iglesias, Judith Kloibhofer, Christian Stolz, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Koen Stork, Simon S. Christiansen, Michael Fink og Henning Ettrup som ankom sidst på eftermiddagen.

After leaving the duck trap all night i woke up even earlier than usual and had to go and check the trap before going to ringing. in this time Michael and Koen went to open the up the nets at Kabeltroumell. I walked to the lake and saw that we didn’t had enough luck to catch a duck and went to the ringing area to also try the Quail nets that Simon recently got for the station. Also didn’t have luck with these…. Also the ringing was very slow with fewer birds than usual.

A nice second year Jernspurv. the very most of them that we catch are first year so far we only had 2-3 Adult birds in this Autumn

After the very long morning for me, going from place to place and doing a lot of stuff we came back to the station and had a power nap so we will be fresh for cleaning. We had a very quick cleaning day, very nice to have 6 people cleaning around and it is also much faster.

After the cleaning we got a call that someone found a kingfisher pretty close to station so we maybe will go and try to ring it, but we all were too busy and didn’t had enough time for that today, maybe if he will stay for tomorrow….

After that we all had a nice time together having dinner and usual routine in the station.

We also received a nice text that our neighbors wrote about the week they had here and what they have experienced living in the station for a week so u we can share it.

Lighhthouse Highlights By Eric brodersen & Liz kragelund

Ringing:

Rørspurv-2

Gærdesmutte-1

Jernspurv-2

Rødhals-2

Rødstjert-1

Sangdrossel-1

Gransanger-6

Løvsanger-1

Total:16

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Michael Fink, Koen Stork, Laia Soler Iglesias, Knud Pedersen.

Today our team was split up. Koen and Michael went out for observations at worlds end 3 for doing some seawatching. The highlights were a flock of pink-footed geese (kortnæbbet gås) and one lapland bunting (lapværling) flying over. Koen was also impressed by all the common scoter (sortand) and velvet scoters (fløjsand) were nice, as he is not used to see so many of them and Michael saw a juvenile common tern (fjordterne) roosting on the beach. After two hours Koen went to Ellekrattet to continue the observations there, as the wind and the sand was very annoying today. On the way he heard a yellow-browed warbler (hvidbrynet løvsanger) calling! At Ellekrattet the counting included two tree pipits. After the observations they went back to the station and had some lunch and a powernap.

The other part of our team (Simon, Chris, Yehonatan, Laia, Judith) had a break from the usual daily routine and spent one night at Simon’s family summer house in Saltumstrand. The possibility to sleep as long as we want and waking up in another place felt like a short vacation. Laia woke up first and went for a walk and some observations to the nearby beach. A little bit later Christian joined her and did his daily swim in the north sea. When I woke up they just came back and told me about their nice walk. As I was still a little bit tired I decided to copy the idea and went to the beach. After running on the beach and a fast swim I felt fresh and joint the others having breakfast next to a warm fire in the living room.

Around 11 it was time to say goodbye to the beautiful and comfortable house. Following a “road” on the beach we headed for friends of Simon, William and Agnes. We used the allowance to go by car on the beach, of course, for some observations. Among others we saw one little stint (dværgryle) and two darkbellied brant geese (mørkbuget knortegås) roosting on the beach. Arrived at Williams house he showed us around. He is with 88 years the oldest active ringer in Denmark and uses several different traps to catch the birds. His garden is always filled with many birds, as the garden is very natural and domestic finches, which he keeps in his garden, attract them. So, he can ring many birds just in his garden next to his house. Then we enjoyed coffee, tea and lunch at their place.

On the roadtrip back home we had a stop because Simon thought that he has seen a pallid harrier (steppehøg). Unfortunately it flew away and we could not find it again. However, we saw some red kites (rød glente), peregrine falcon (vandrefalk), golden plovers (hjejle) and lapwings (vibe) instead. In the late afternoon we came back to the station.

While Michael is preparing food for dinner Yehonatan and Laia went out to put a trap for ducks in the reed. Let`s see if it works that well than the traps in Williams garden.

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Michael Fink, Koen Stork, Laia Soler Iglesias, William & Agnes Aarestrup

Today we were ringing at Kabeltrommelkrattet, Yehonathan and I were going up early to open the nets while Michael, Simon and Christian joined later. The ringing was actually quite fun! One of the first birds in the nets was a Snipe (Dobbeltbekkasin)! It is the first one to be ringed at Kabeltrommelkrattet. Apart from that we caught the usual species. Field observations from the ringing spot were also nice with Little Bunting (Dværgværling), Lapland Longspur (Laplandsværling), Great Grey Shrike (Stor Tornskade) (flying around the nets as well, exciting!) and a Great Skua (Storkjove) passing right overhead. We closed the nets at 10:30 which proved to be exactly the right time as it was our first round without a single bird in the nets.

Judith and Laia were out doing observations with Knud from Verdens Ende 3. Their highlights included the lingering Black Scoter (Amerikansk Sortand) and migrating Brant geese (Knortegås).

After the ringing, Michael and I went to see the Black Scoter (Amerikansk Sortand) and we did! A life tick for us both! We’re enjoying a nice gin-tonic for celebration as I’m writing this.

At 13:00, Yehonathan, Simon, Christian, Judith and Laia left on a trip to Rubjerg Knude and Simons summer house in Blokhus. It was a foggy experience at Rubjerg Knude, which is a dune on a steep cliff to the ocean which slowly coming nearer to the lighthouse that is standing on top. There is already some construction work around the lighthouse going on and it is planned to move the lighthouse in around four weeks, as it otherwise will fall into the sea eventually.

Michael went out birding in the afternoon and saw some nice things such as the Yellow-browed warbler (Hvidbrynet Løvsanger) that was found this morning, a Snow Bunting (Snespurv) and a good number of ringed Great Black-backed Gulls (Svartbag): 11!

At Simons summer cabin, the others heated the house with firewood and Judith and Christian went swimming at the large beach behind the house. Birdwise nothing exciting happened to the roadtrip people during that day, except maybe the migrating Pink-footed Geese (Kortnæbbet Gås) at low height. The evening was dominated by making and having dinner and playing games.

For the rest of the day here at the station, we just did the usual stuff, went shopping and had some good talks!

Ringing (Kabeltrommelkrattet):                                       

Common Snipe – Dobbeltbekassin – 1

Eurasian Blue Tit – Blåmejse – 2               

Eurasian Blackcap – Munk – 5

Great Tit – Musvit – 1

Common Chiffchaff – Gransanger – 9

Willow Warbler – Løvsanger (Song of songs) – 1

Eurasian Wren – Gærdesmutte – 4

European Robin – Rødhals – 7

Dunnock – Jernspurv – 3                        

Total: 33

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Michael Fink, Koen Stork, Laia Soler Iglesias, Knud Pedersen.