What a night! After two unsuccessful attempts to catch Sandwich Terns and equip them with colour rings, we were finally successful yesterday and were able to catch three Sandwich Terns, one of them a recapture from Denmark. During the last three weeks we had set up mist nets at two different locations where roosting Sandwich Terns were observed. In the first two nights we only caught one and two birds, but our efforts were worth it. Lisa was very happy that we were able to put 3 colour rings on Sandwich Terns in Nordmandshage yesterday. As part of her master’s thesis about the post breeding dispersal of Sandwich Terns in Danish waters it is important to have recaptures. Colour rings have a much higher recapture rate than metal rings, because you can read them through a telescope or binoculars without having to catch the bird.

But not only the Sandwich Terns flew in our nets: We trapped Oyster Catchers (Strandskader), Dunlins (Almindelig Ryle), Common Sandpipers (Mudderklire), a Redknot (Islandsk Ryle), a Redshank (Rødben), a Common Ringed Plover (Stor Præstekrave) and a Common Tern (Fjordterne). In total 20 birds!

We even caught an adult Dunlin, which you can see by the black feathers on the belly:

Pernille was happy to join us for the nightcatching for one round, even though she had to teach in the morning!

After this exciting, but also efforting night, we needed to get some rest. Meanwhile, Martin was doing migration counts at World’s End 3 and saw a Rosy Starling (Rosenstær). He also observed Great Skuas (Storkjove) and Brant Geese (Knortegås). After lunch he listened to night recordings for nocturnal migration.  

Angus, Lisa, Esben and I were sleeping in the morning to “recover” from the night. Angus went shopping in the afternoon and will cook a veggi chili with rice and garlic bread for tonight. Also, he will do his first social media post today. Esben studied maths today for his umcoming university studies. Lisa checked the DOF Basen countings with countings we made ourselves of roosting Sandwich Terns on several locations in Denmark and summarized it in a map for her master’s thesis.

Simon is disappointed, because the station didn’t get financial support for loss during the corona lockdown, because the Skagen Fuglestation is not a local society of Birdlife Denmark. He is hopeful that there can still be changed something about it.

Ringmærkning (Hals, Nordmandshage):

Oyster Catcher – Strandskader - 3

Dunlins - Almindelig Ryle - 8

Common Sandpipers – Mudderklire - 2

Redknot - Islandsk Ryle - 1

Redshank – Rødben - 1

Common Ringed Plover - Stor Præstekrave - 1

Common Tern – Fjordterne - 1

Sandwich Terns – Splitterne - 3

Total: 20

People: Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Pernille Roed, Esben E. Hansen, Lisa Vergin, Angus Barnett

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

Today, our day was dedicated to the night catching that will happen tonight. The team is going out again to try to catch Sandwich Terns (Splitterne) in order to ring them with colour rings for Lisa’s master project.

No ringing in the morning then, so we could save our energy for the upcoming night. Kristina, Knud, Angus, Ebbe and I went out for migration counting instead. It was a slow morning though and we only saw a few Great Skuas (Stor Kjove) and 160 Gannets (Sule) migrating. Still, it was nice to be out and see our first Fulmars for a part of us, or to enjoy the beginning of Brant Goose (Knortegas) migrating season. We saw 160 of them flying just in front of our counting spot. They belong to the ssp. hrota which breeds in Greenland and Spitzberg.

It was again a great opportunity to enjoy a beautiful sunrise.

In the afternoon, the team was getting all the equipment ready.  Our batteries also need to be charged, with a well deserved nap! Lisa and Amelie charged the pick-up to leave around 17:00. In the meantime, Simon was leading a tour for a few tourists interested of the Bird Observatory’s activity.

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Nocturnal migration count

People: Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Kristina Sønderkjær, Angus Barnett, Ebbe and Bente, Lisa Vergin

Dagen startede stille ud på fuglestationens øverste etage. I dag var der tid til at sove længe, i det at vejret ikke tillod at sætte net op. Dette betød dog, at der var tid til den helt store rengøring af lejligheden, der blev støvsuget, vasket gulv og tørret overflader af.

Men fuglestationen står aldrig stille - selv på en blæsende dag som i dag, blev der afholdt guidet tur for en niende klasse. De blev introduceret for ringmærkningen, og Simon tog dem med i fyrmesterens gamle have for at, se hvad der var fløjet i nettet. Desværre ingen fugle - men derimod kunne en død sule fra fryseren vække en begejstring hos klassen.

Efter den guidede tur fik stationen besøg af selveste ringmærkeren selv, nemlig William Aarestrup, som igennem sin tid har ringmærket tonsvis af fugle, og bidraget med meget viden om fuglene. Senere tog vi allesammen, Angus, Amelie, Martin og Jeg (Kristina) en tur til Jerup Strand for at tælle splitterner. Vi så kun fem splitterner, hvoraf kun to af dem var restende. Men derimod så vi en fin flok af ni knortegæs som lå i vandet, samt ryler, stor præstekrave og strandskader.

Her ses Angus, Amelie og Martin som kommer forskellige steder fra verdenen. Angus er 25 år og kommer fra England, Amelie 21 år og kommer fra Tyskland og tilsidst Martin på 31 år, og som er fra Frankring - alle med en interesse i naturen og alle dets fugle. Der vi kom hjem stod vores gæster Bente og Ebbe klar med aftensmaden, som bestod af lækker lasagne og dertilhørende vin.

In the absence of Simon there was no ringing today so me, Amelie and Martin went to monitor some migration from World’s End point 1. As the sun rose from behind the sea I immediately knew I wasn’t going to need a warm coat today.

It was wonderful to count the gannets moving Southeast. Between 07:00 and 08:00 we counted around 100, but between 09:00 and 10:00 a further 250 had moved Southeast. Among the gannets; a variety of divers, scoters and skuas. So we decided to move closer to worlds end watch point 3.

From here Martin found me a velvet scoter close to shore – another long due first for me! There was a steady movement of arctic skuas, great skuas and red throated divers too mostly southeast.

Meanwhile Amelie had noticed some tracks in the sand dunes, so we tried to identify the possible culprits...

Possible beetle tracks?

White wagtail

A less eventful afternoon led to a great home cooked quiche meal by Martin with Amelie, Simon and our two guests from the lighthouse.

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People: Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Angus Barnett,

Before telling you about our day, let’s talk about our devoted night catchers from yesterday night. Esben, Amelie and Angus went out to see if they could get catch another bird since they had been successful on the nights before. And they were again ! This time it wasn’t a wader but they caught a Greylag Goose at the tip. Nice catch !

Today, the weather was nice again. Then the whole team went ringing this morning even though it could have been also a good day for migration.

The first bird to be untangled from the mist nets was a Northern Wheatear, it was a good sign for the upcoming captures we had. We enjoyed no less than birds captured, including different species. Angus had the pleasure to ring for the first time a Wheatear (Stenpikker). Amelie ringed a first bird with a steel ring, a juvenile Water Rail (Vandrikse). Since we were enough, I also took an active part and ringed some more birds, starting to get more confident in handling and ringing birds under the enriching supervision of Esben and Simon.

Water Rail juv - Vandrikse

Northern Wheater - Stenpiker

Amelie ringing the Water Rail

Lesser Redpolls - Lille Grasisken

Simon and our guest who joined us this morning !

Rodstert - Redstart

Angus untangling a Willow Warbler

Best teachers ever ?

Arne and Esben left just after lunch, they have both to return home, Arne for work and Esben for moving and getting himself ready for his upcopming university start. We hope we’ll see you again during the autumn guys !

During the afternoon, we entered as every day the ringing datas and went through the datas we entered during the last months to check if there are any mistakes, quite a long but important task.

Night Ringing (Grenen)

Gragas – Greylag Goose – 1

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Blåmejse - Blue Tit - 1

Broget Fluesnapper - Pied Flycatcher - 1

Fuglekonge - Goldcrest - 1

Gærdesanger - Lesser Whitethroat – 3

Gærdesmutte - Wren – 1

Gråsisken, Lille - Lesser Redpoll - 6

Kærsanger - Marsh Warbler - 1

Løvsanger - Willow Warbler - 34

Munk – Blackcap - 3

Musvit - Great Tit - 1

Rødstjert - Common Redstart - 3

Rørsanger - Reed Warbler - 2

Stenpikker - Northern Wheater - 1

Træløber - Eurasian Treecreeper - 1

Tornsanger - Common Whitethroat - 2

Total: 62

No migration data today

People: Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Esben Elgaard Hansen, Angus Barnett, Arne Anderson

Yesterday evening Esben and Lisa went nightcatching again at Grenen and I joined them for the first time. In the beginning we tried to catch an owl Simon had just seen when he was driving home to the station. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find it, so we walked on the beach to the tip, equipped with a flashlight, a sweep net and two skilled catchers. So, we had luck and caught a juvenile Dunlin (Almindelig Ryle) around 11 pm! Lisa was happy to ring her first Dunlin.

Because it was raining in the morning, we opened the mist nets at 7:45 today. It was nice to sleep a little bit longer than usual. The weather was nice, and we were quite a lot of people at Kabeltromlen today. While Angus was counting at World’s End 3, Simon, Arne, Esben, Lisa, Martin and I were at the ringing station. Jørgen and Igor came by to visit.

In the afternoon Martin, Esben and I entered the ringing data from today. Also, Lisa baked some delicious Kannelbullar for us today and Jørgen visited the station. Unfortunately, Lisa had to leave today again, because she needs to be in the office on Monday morning. But maybe she will come again in October or November.

Before dinner Kristina and her boyfriend Mads came by for saying hello. I was really happy they brought their dog Aslan with them!

Night Ringing (Grenen)

 Almindelig Ryle - Dunlin – 1

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Gærdesanger - Lesser Whitethroat – 1

Gransanger – Chiffchaff – 1

Gulspurv – Yellowhammer – 1

Løvsanger - Willow Warbler - 11

Solsort – Blackbird - 1

Tornsanger - Common Whitethroat - 2

Total: 17

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

People: Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Esben Elgaard Hansen, Angus Barnett, Lisa Vergin, Arne Anderson, Jørgen & Igor, Kristina Sønderkjær, Mads, Aslan

Ringing today was cancelled after waking up at 4am to find the winds were too strong to set up the nets. There was one bird ringed however in the form of goosander caught by Esben late last night!!

About 09:00 a red-footed falcon surfaced around the lighthouse giving me my first views of this species ever and only on the second day of my arrival. Throughout the day there was a trickling of sandwich terns along the coast and a young family of red backed shrikes in the dunes.

Later in the afternoon about 16:00 me and Martin visited Jerup Strand which proved to be very fruitful with higlights as 2 Red-footed falcons (Aftenfalk) and 3Spoonbills (Skestork) and a lot of waders.

And 9 species of waders including sanderling (sanløbar), spotted redshark (sortlire) and bar-tailed godwit (lille kobbersneppe).

Goosander (Stor Skallesluger)

The day started pretty much as every previous day : the ringing team got up early to open the nets at 05:15, and I went to Verdens Ende 1 to look out for migration.

A new member of the team joined us today. Angus arrived yesterday and will stay with us for the entire autumn season. He comes from England and is a experienced ringer. He was pretty happy today to ring his first Lesser Whitethroat (Gærdesanger) !

Although the weather has changed, it wasn’t really the case in the mist nets. It was another slow morning and only 14 birds were caught and ringed today. On the migration side, the wind was too strong to see any passerines flying. A few birds were still active at sea though, and Martin saw a putative Pomarine Skua (Mellemkjove), a Great Skua (Storkjove) and a poor determined Hobby (Laerkefalk) that was attempting to migrate, flying just over the waves and having so much trouble to get forward against that strong wind ! Let’s hope that this strong southerly winds have much more to offer for the next days !

Windy day

From the far distance, I also saw that Knud was out and satisfying his love for Gulls. Yesterday, we were together and saw this odd looking Lesser Black-backed Gull.

In the afternoon, we did some office work and little things such as data entry, social media, bike check, etc… while Esben was working on some mathematics for his incoming return to school.

In the evening, we had the chance to have Simon cooking the dinner for us !!
Lisa and Arne, Simon's good friend from Lund, joined us and will stay for the weekend.

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Gærdesanger - Lesser Whitethroat - 2

Havesanger – Garden Warbler - 1

Løvsanger - Willow Warbler - 8

Munk - Blackcap - 1

Tornsanger - Common Whitethroat - 1

Total: 14

Night Ringing  (Grenen)

Goosander 1 

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

People: Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Esben Elgaard Hansen, Angus Barnett, Lisa Vergin, Arne Anderson

Today we had our last ringing day together with Amandine and Viktoria. Unfortunately, they had to leave today, because they will both start a new job soon. The Kabeltromlen will feel really empty without them…

We had a rather slow morning, but still caught some nice birds. Today we had another Wren (Gærdesmutte) in our nets.

Then I could ring a Great Spotted Woodpecker (Stor Flagspætte) for the first time.

Also a nice surprise was a Northern Wheatear (Stenpikker).

Kristina was also happy to ring her first bird today and extracted them from the mistnets!

Meanwhile Martin was doing migration counts at World’s End 1 for 2 hours, then he joined Knud at World’s End 3 and was happy to see Arctic Skuas (Almindelig Kjove), Caspian Gulls (Kaspisk Måge) and a Northern Lapwing (Vibe).

For the last few days Simon had a nice time at his summer house. He observed waders at the beach but wasn’t able to catch any.

After the ringing I baked some Goodbye-Pancakes for Viktoria and Amandine and we did some tasks at the observatory. Martin listened to the night recordings of bird calls he has taken for the last three days with his microphone at Kabeltromlen.

Then we said goodbye to Viktoria and Amandine, hopefully we’ll see you again soon!

Our guests Niklas and Falke visited Grenen and watched the seals, of course with enough distance to not disturb them. They also visited the exhibition in the lighthouse and really liked it. After that they had a swim in the sea with many nice waves today.

For dinner Niklas and Laura prepared a really delicious Couscous with Halloumi and Hummus for us and we had some Danish dessert.

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Gærdesanger - Lesser Whitethroat - 1

Gærdesmutte – Wren - 1

Gransanger - Chiffchaff - 1

Løvsanger - Willow Warbler - 10

Rørsanger - Reed Warbler - 3

Sangdrossel – Song Thrush – 1

Stenpikker – Northern Wheatear - 1

Stor Flagspætte – Great Spotted Woodpecker - 1

Tornsanger - Common Whitethroat - 4

Total: 23

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

People: Amandine Doré, Viktoria Mader, Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Kristina Sønderkjær, Knud Pedersen, Laura, Niklas, Falke, Fjord

Hej! Vi er Laura, Niklas, Falke på 4 år og Fjord på 6 måneder. Vi er en naturglad familie fra Gadevang på Sjælland og vi har nu tilbragt tre dage her på Skagen Fuglestation.

Før Danmark blev ramt for af COVID-19 så vi et opslag i DOF-bladet om muligheden for at bo på og deltage i arbejdet på Skagen Fuglestation. Vi skyndte os straks at skrive til Stationsforstanderen, Simon, som var meget imødekommende og hjælpsom. Vi bookede 5 dage og har gået og glædet os lige siden.

I dag, onsdag har været en spændende dag. Vi startede dagen med at stå op klokken 6 med udsigt til en rød solopgang igennem lejlighedens høje østvendte vinduer, spise en hurtig morgenmad og så ellers komme afsted mod ”Verdens Ende”, for at deltage i morgenringmærkningen.

Da vi nåede frem efter en kort gåtur på ca. 10 minutter blev vi mødt af Viki, Amelie og Amandine som vi har lært at kende her på stationen. Derudover var der lokale Oluf, som gav en hjælpende hånd med.

Vi blev modtaget ved det lille bord i det fri, hvor ringmærkningen var i fuld gang; ringe, papirer, måleudstyr og små røde poser der hang og bevægede sig! Falke blev draget hen til poserne og vi så spændte til mens havesangere, rørsangere og en lille gråsisken blev målt, vejet, fik ring på og endelig sluppet løs. Falke fik lov til at holde flere af de små fugle i håndfladen og se dem lette efter endt ringmærkning: stort!

Og så ringede en klokke hvilket betød endnu en runde hvor de små røde poser forhåbentlig skulle fyldes op med en ny omgang fugle fra nettene. Vi gik med Amelie og Amandine ud til 4-5 net, som var opsat i krattet: med masser af mudder. Heldigvis var der gummistøvler på og vi kunne komme helt hen og se hvordan fuglene en for en blev viklet ud af nettene af kyndige hænder for derefter at blive sat i individuelle små røde poser.

Efter runden kom vi tilbage til bordet hvor vi kunne nærstudere flere havesangere og rørsangere, men også to brogede fluesnappere, en dompap og en helt utrolig sød gærdesmutte som Amelie havde viklet ud.

Vi fik alt forklaret mens det skete: hvordan man måler vingelængder, hvordan man puster på fjerene på bugen for at se fodertilstanden og hvordan man vejer dem på bittesmå vægte. Og så er der meget sjovt at vide at gærdesmutten er en lille ilter fugl, der virkelig spjætter og spræller for at komme løs. Vi nød en hel time med ringmærkningen og gik derefter hjem ad det sandede spor som sandormen bruger.

Resten af dagen gik med en lille formiddagslur, en dejlig badetur lige neden for fyret, lede efter forsteninger (vi fandt én) og flotte sten (vi fandt mange!) på stranden samt en god is på den lille restaurant ’blink’ der ligger ved siden af fyret.

Vi har sluttet dagen med at spise hjemmelavet pizza og chokolademousse med de frivillige, der opholder sig på fyret.

Det er så nemt og fantastisk at være her som en naturglad familie med små børn. Vi glæder os til de to sidste dage vi skal tilbringe her og hvem ved, gøre det til en tradition med en årlig familietur til Skagen Fuglestation i August :)

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Total: 52

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

People: Amandine Doré, Viktoria Mader, Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Kristina Sønderkjær, Jørgen & Igor, Oluf Lou, Laura, Niklas, Falke, Fjord