Hello everyone !

Today was a great day for birding and for us; we divided in 2 teams so we could both ring in Grenen and count the migrating birds at the beach. Max and Alice went sea watching and they spotted a red phalarope resting on the sand.

                                                           Red phalarope (Thorshane) by Max Laubstein

Martina, Rita and I ringed a decent amount of birds; a few willow warblers (løvsangers) among them. It is a sign of the beginning of the migration !

                       A yellow hammer (Gulspurv) after being ringed by Nathan Delmas

Later in the day, Alice went out to look at butterflies and found some rare Phengaris alcon !

Phengaris alcon by Alice Scalzo

Meanwhile, Martina observed a little Auk in the harbor quite close from the shore.

A swimming little auk (Søkonge) by Laila Neermann

Our day ended with a nice chile cooked by Max !

I hope everyone had a day as nice as ours and see you tomorrow !

Nathan

Hi all!

Our original plans for today were for Martina, Rita, and Nathan to go ringing at Kabeltromlen, and for myself and Alice to do a seawatch at the tip of Grenen.  Early this morning however, Martina awoke to find rain on the forecast, so ringing had to be cancelled.  Nonetheless, Martina joined me to conduct the seawatch at 4:45.  Compared to the past few days, it was fairly slow.  Foggy conditons overnight likely inhibited most nocturnal migrations, so migratory waders / shorebirds were essentially absent, save for a single Dunlin (Almindelig Ryle), looking stunning in breeding or alternate plumage high up on the beach.  In the first hour of the seawatch, I was able to spot a handful of Northern Fulmars (Mallemuk) distantly arcing over the horizon, simply silhouettes in the intense amber glow of the sunrise. 

A beautiful sunrise from Grenen

Northern Gannet (Sule) numbers were also fairly high, I tallied at least 160 at most, our highest count from the past few days.  Though the offshore realm wasn't at its most active, after the seawatch I spent an hour combing through the mixed gull flocks on the beaches at Grenen searching for color-ringed gulls.  Ultimately, I was able to succesfully read the codes on 6 birds' (2 Great black-backed gulls (Svartbag) and 4 Lesser black-backed gulls (Sildemåge) ) color rings.  We will have to wait a bit until we receive the data from the lessers' rings, but we were able to learn that while one of the great black-backs has remained around northern Denmark its whole life (as far as we can tell), the other was originally ringed in Norway, and has journeyed at least as far as the Netherlands in the past few years!

One of the color-ringed lesser black-backed gulls (Sildemåge) observed today.

While Martina and I seawatched, the others slept in to 6 am or so (that's sleeping in for our standards), and did some work repairing torn mist nets, among other things.  In the afternoon, Simon lead a ringing tour for a large group of tourists in the lighthouse garden.  One Greater Whitethroat (Tornsanger) was caught, and hopefully provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate to the public the importance of the ringing we conduct here at Skagen Fuglestation.  Soon after the tour, Simon for left for his road trip to Norway: we wish him a wonderful adventure!

The highlight of today was unequivocally celebrating the birthday of Alice, who has been here at Skagen Fuglestation since March!  Before he left, Simon lead us in a Danish birthday song to celebrate Alice.  I can't say the rest of us understood the words we were singing, but it was fun nonetheless!  In the evening, we went to beach for a while, where we played a fun bowling-like game (shamefully, Martina & Rita absolutely obliterated Alice, Nathan, and I's team), and enjoyed a dinner picnic.  Nathan went for a quick swim in the Kattegat, but apparently the water was underwhelmingly not cold.  And, as always, we paid attention to the feathered beasts that surround us, and got to see a juvenile Black Guillemot (Tejst) floating offshore.

Again, we wish Alice the happiest of birthdays, and are so happy to work with her here at Skagen!

Cheers!

Max

Local Observations of the Day in DOFBasen

People: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Martina Hillbrand, and our guests Iben and Olivia.

On the beach in the early morning bird watchers and tourists can be seen with the naked eye, followed by the different species of gulls (Sølvmågeand) and terns (Terner) that dominate the landscape. It is only upon careful observation using the scopes and binoculars at our disposal, that the smallest birds come into view near the pools of water on the beach. The smallest of them are the ringed plover chicks (Stor præstekrave), who blend into the landscape by resembling one of the many pebbles on the beach and walking at a strange pace so as not gather attention from predators lurking above. Over the past couple weeks, our team has been able to ring a couple of the chicks, but just when we thought we found the rest of the chicks, they would disappear before our eyes by blending in with the pebbles. If their clever plumage was not enough to deter predators and lead ringers astray, the ringed plover parents attempt to divert your gaze and lead you away by pretending to be injured. But Martina was quick, gentle, prepared, and ready to ring them late in the morning and they will undoubtedly provide meaningful data.

In the afternoon, our guest Mark Desholm was kind enough to give an interesting presentation on bird migration as well as the use of radar and thermal technologies in ornithological research. The topic interested all of us, and even prompted Hanelie, a former volunteer, to ask if she could join in virtually. Although some of the presentation was familiar to many of us, a lot of the information encouraged discussion about the different uses of technology and how the data they collect can positively impact the understanding of migration, environmental policy, and the construction of wind farms. The topics also opened our eyes to the gaps in our knowledge relating to how birds migrate and why they appear to occasionally migrate in ways that appear “wrong” to researchers, further plunging bird migration into mystery. But Mark’s presentation strongly emphasized the potential for new research and the new frontiers of understanding bird migration. As thanks to new emerging technologies as well as scientists constantly questioning what we believe are the abilities of certain species and understanding what evolution has so brilliantly designed, the world of migration is still very much open for exploration.

Local observations of the day in DOFBasen

People at the Station: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Simon S. Christiansen, Martina Hillbrand, Knud Pedersen, and our guests Mark and Malthe Desholm

Today we finally went ringing again after two days of not being able to go because of weather conditions. It was a very calm day regarding the weather and in the first few hours we had more birds than what we were used to in the past week or two. Migration has not really started yet for most birds, however, we are catching more and more juvenile birds which either have hatched in the area (true mostly for common whitethroats, tornsanger and chiffchaff, gransanger) or close by and which are now exploring the wider surroundings of their birth place (e.g. blue and great tits; blåmejse og musvit; or blackcaps, munk). Talking about blackcaps, we caught our first juvenile today and we are waiting for more.

Of course, all the juvenile whitethroats we get (and quite a few are recaptures so they don't even show up in the ringing totals below) provide a lot of valuable data, for example on how long they stay in the area before they leave and if we are lucky also, whether they come back next year. But they do get a little boring after a while, so we were extremely pleased to find a very special bird in one of the nets this morning: a green sandpiper (svaleklire).

It was a juvenile that must be making its first southwards migration since they do not breed in the area. The birds that we get here breed mainly in Sweden and Norway and they start their migration a little earlier than songbirds do. I assume this is mother nature’s way of making sure that bird watchers always have something to get excited about, no matter what time of the year.

While the rest of us was at the ringing, Nathan and Rita went with Knud (who gets credits for the photos below) to World’s End 3 to do some seawatching. They also had a large variety of birds including a puffin (lunde), a dozen bar-tailed godwits (lille kobbersnebbe), a ruddy turnstone (stenvender) and a lot of common terns (fjordterne). They also managed to read a color-ringed kittiwake (the same we read last weekend) and a sandwich tern (splitterne).

On the down side, they had to deal with visitors who left their dog roam freely among the roosting birds which is forbidden on Grenen Beach between April and October for the protection of the birds. Seeing that the chicks of the common ringed plovers (stor præstekrave) are not able to fly yet, they may have just escaped their death because of Nathan’s and Rita’s interference. So, if you want to take your dog to the beach, please keep it on a leash so that the birds can breed and rest in peace on the beach!

While we were out in the morning, Lærke left but not before making sure she had our contact details to send us the video she is making about the ringing, once it is finished. We are very excited to see it and hope Lærke will get into the university program she applied to so she will be close to Skagen and can visit more often! Mark and Malthe are staying until Sunday, which is good, since Mark is trying to get our fancy bat detector up and running for migration season.

In the afternoon we had a session with Simon where we talked about moult and aging birds. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening making sure all the data is up to date. And we ate a nice dinner in order to load our batteries for the migration season to come!

Birds ringed at Kabeltrommeln:

Green sandpiper (svaleklire) 1

Song thrush (sangdrossel) 1

Blackbird (solsort) 1

Lesser Whitehtroat (gærdesanger) 2

Common Whitethroat (tornsanger) 21

Blackcap (munk) 2

Icterine warbler (gulbug) 1

Chiffchaff (gransanger) 5

Great tit (musvit) 2

Blue tit (blåmejse) 1

Reed bunting (rørspruv) 1

Total: 38

Local observations of the day in DOFBasen

People at the station: People at the Station: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Simon S. Christiansen, Martina Hillbrand, Knud Pedersen, and our guests Mark, Malthe and Lærke Desholm

Hello everyone !

Our day starts with the sunrise; Martina, Rita and I walked along the water from the lighthouse to the tip of the beach. We counted the birds that were roosting on the sand and tried to observe migrating birds. Unfortunatly, it was a very windy morning and not a lot of birds were seen but Martina managed to get very close to some gulls and take a good picture of 3 ringed birds.

                               3 ringed lesser black-backed gulls in the middle of the roost

One of the bird has been ringed near Oslo in 2017, spotted in Germany and Spain in 2018 and now it is stopping by Skagen. The other one was ringed in Hirsholm in 2017, was spotted in France in 2018, in Denmark in 2020 and then in Morocco in 2021 before coming back to Denmark this year !

A bit later in the morning, Knud and Max joined us to count the migrating birds. Once again, not a lot of birds were observed.

In the afternoon, Martina and I went shopping and observing birds in the harbor while Max tried to catch some white wagtails in the garden.After a very hard biking experience due to the wind, we counted more than 200 cormorans resting on the pier with few gulls among them.

Tonight the guests cooked for us and we are ready to enjoy a delicious meal !

Have a great evening and see you tomorrow !

Nathan

Local observations of the day in DOFBasen

People at the Station: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Simon S. Christiansen, Martina Hillbrand, Knud Pedersen, and our guests Mark, Malthe and Lærke Desholm

Hi all!

The events of today's blog actually begin in the late hours of last night, when we drove to Jerup ~30 km south of Skagen, to attempt night-catching some nocturnal species in a field. Unfortunately, after several hours of waiting for something to end up in one of our nets/traps, we had not succeeded. Thankfully, in anticipation of a strikeout, we had brought the nets and lights necessary to attempt night-catching of shorebirds/waders at the nearby Jerup Strand. Conditions weren't ideal, and we are still quite early for shorebird migration to be in full swing. While night-catching, we use the Fuglestation's quite-fancy thermal monocular to spot birds roosting on the beach/mudflats in the darkness, approach them with a bright flashlight, before swiftly netting them. But, at these high latitudes, while the sun sets, it doesn't set very "deep," per se. At its deepest, the sun's light still creeps over the horizon, so we experience a sort of perennial twilight through the night. This confounds our ability to efficiently sneak up on the birds out of total darkness. As Lisa and I (we were the only ones with proper waterproof footwear) roamed the mudflats, we encountered a few fairly-large groups of Dunlin "Almindelig Ryle," but they all flew off before we could get close enough to attempt a catch. Nevertheless, we persisted, and ultimately suceeded in catching a young black-headed gull "Hættemåge" and two young common ringed plovers "Stor Præstekrave." Rita, Nathan, and I each ringed one of the birds, with the assistance of Lisa and Simon, providing our first experience using steel rings, which are used for most waterbirds, as opposed to the aluminium rings we ring most terrestrial species with. Steel rings can be quite difficult to close properly, as they are less malleable and need to "click" shut properly. 

Ringed Plover Chick

Those of us who spent last night night-catching spent much of this morning sleeping in.  Conditons were far too windy for any ringing to happen today, so we completed some data entry, checking, and other tasks around the station.  In the afternoon, Martina, Rita, and Nathan went to "Cormorant Lake" to survey the cormorant "Skarv" breeding colony there.

Survey Cormorant Lake

We had our evening meeting together with our guests Mark, Lærke, and Malthe, and later Alice cooked us a lovely dinner.

Cheers!

Max

Ringing at Jerup Strand:

Black-headed gull "Hættemåge" - 1

Common ringed plover "Stor Præstekrave" - 2

Local observations of the day in DOFBasen

People at the Station: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Simon S. Christiansen,Lisa Vergin, Martina Hillbrand, Lars Bo Jacobsen, and our guests Mark, Malthe and Lærke Desholm

This morning our group split up into two teams, with Nathan and Martina opening the nets, and Alice, Max, and I joining for the first round of net checks at around 4:30 AM. Already by that time, we were pleasantly surprised to find our guests waiting to capture the entire experience with their cameras and microphones. Although we did not get a glimpse of the footage yet, the backdrop of the orange sky must have added to the already exciting footage.

Photo Credit: Alice Scalzo

Not long after our first round which was mostly dominated by common white-throats (Tornsanger), we were joined by two more observers eager to catch a glimpse of the ringing process and of the mysterious birds temporarily confined to our bird bags. Over the next couple of hours, more tourists and local observers accompanied by their children flocked to our ringing table nestled in the dunes to watch us go through the steps many of us are attempting to master, and of course take pictures of the birds before their release including the incredibly cute blue tits (Blåmejse).

On one of the rounds, we did not catch any birds, and I was expecting the tourists to lose patience and leave but much to my surprise many of them took the opportunity to ask questions about us, our careers, studies, and most importantly the birds and ringing process. It was during that short “break” that we were really able to connect with the public and impart some of our knowledge, especially to their impressionable children. Environmental education is an important part of conservation, and the Skagen Fuglestation is constantly finding ways to share the important work that is being done with the public of all ages, whether it is by encouraging visitors to the station and lighthouse to sign up for the many bird tours, pop by our morning ringing sessions, or by writing this blog, everyone at the station is working with birds as well as people. Thankfully many birders are some of the most passionate wildlife enthusiasts there are and are eager to share their knowledge and help ID birds, but it is always nice to see children get involved with wildlife with the aid of their supportive parents. In fact, tonight a family that had witnessed the ringing for the very first time this morning was so pleased with their experience that they decided to join us tonight to observe nightjar catching, which shows the importance and impact of environmental education on even the youngest of our society.

 Local Observations of the Day in DOFBasen

Birds Rung Today:

Rørsanger: 1

Gærdesanger:4

Kæersanger:1

Lille Gråsisken:2

Munk: 1

Blåmejse: 3

Tornsanger: 12

Gransanger: 2

Solsort:1

Hvid vipstjert: 1

People: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Martina Hillbrand, Mark, Malthe and Lærke Desholm

First of all, I should say that I am happy to be here at the bird observatory again after almost 12 months. Again, I decided to spend most of my summer holidays here and instead of relaxing and sleeping a lot I sleep as little as I can and try to see and ring as many birds as possible. I hope I can sleep when the school year starts again. Unfortunately, the weather has not been favorable so far and we couldn’t ring as much as I had wanted. Last night the weather forecast was a bit unclear about what the wind situation would be like this morning, so I got up an hour later than normal for opening the nets but the winds were still too strong. Opening the nets in too strong winds would endanger the health of the birds and that is, of course, not what we want.

Instead of leaving then, I stayed at the lighthouse and watched a rather beautiful sunrise, while waiting for the winds to die down. After an hour or so, I decided we could finally go. We opened the nets two hours later than normal, meaning that the first net check was at 6.30am which feels almost like lunch time if you are used to getting up at half past two in the night. Luckily the sun was hiding behind a small band of clouds for the first hours so despite the late hours we could still catch a reasonable amount of birds. Nothing special apart from a flock of baby blue tits (blåmejse) who were probably just discovering the surroundings of their birth place. I wonder if the ringing experience changed their view of their world. Seeing that they are blue tits, however, it probably only encouraged them to fight whenever they are in danger showing them that it may end in their lucky release.

We also caught a few of the redpolls (gråsisken) that keep circling the area, so we could determine that they are adults probably celebrating their freedom after the kids have left hotel mama. This pair probably still belong together as they were calling each other and the male entered the net reacting to the females calls while she was being released (the male is recognizable by the red head, giving them their English name, while the Danish name applies to both male and female so is maybe a bit less sexist...)

We saw a bittern (rørdrum) fly by and land in the same place where they were supposedly breeding last year, so with some luck in the next few days we will also see some young bitterns in the area. Other than that we also did not have any particularly interesting observations. With quite a few birds in the nets and all the volunteers eager to learn we were busy enough just with that.

Gunnar guided a hiking tour for the Lighthouse in the area and they came by the ringing after 10am and the visitors were lucky enough to see birds ringed despite the late morning, so that was also good. And a consolation after the nightjar (natravn) tour last night did not get to see but only hear nightjars.

After we got home Rita cooked a delicious lunch out of leftovers and then we all had a nap. The guests left before we arrived back but not without reserving a week’s stay for next year. We would like to thank them for their company and also for their help on the nightjar tour last night. Mark Desholm (former head of the nature department of DOF which is responsible for running our bird observatory) arrived with two of his (grown up) children in the early afternoon (environmentally friendly by train) and is eager to get his hands on birds again after too much office work in the last months. Unfortunately, the weather doesn’t look all that good for their stay but to start off, tomorrow should be the single best day for a long time with almost no wind throughout the day. We will try to make as much use of it as possible from morning until night. I wonder if that is the reason why Simon decided to come back early from his holiday…

Keep your fingers crossed for it to be good ringing tomorrow!

Newly ringed birds at Kabeltrommeln:

Blåmejse (Blue tit) 7

Musvit (Great tit) 3

Gærdesanger (Lesser Whitethroat) 2

Tornsnager (Common Whitethroat) 7

Gransanger (Chiffchaff) 1

Lille Gråsisken (Lesser Redpoll) 3

Total: 23

Local Observations of the Day in DOFBasen

People: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Martina Hillbrand, Mark, Malthe and Lærke Desholm