Morning at Jennes Sø and the afternoon chasing an aftenfalk

Today started early for Jonas and me as we had to get up at 3am and go to Jennes Sø to open the nets for our CES ringing. While biking there, I heard my first ever Spooted Crake (Plettet rørvagtel) calling in the reeds and was very happy! Soon after 4am Michaela, Rasmus and Mikkel joined us there and we had quite a slow beginning of ringing. An hour or so later a black-faced bunting (Hætteværling) was called on Zello and the guys tried to twitch it, but unfortunately without any success.

While at Jennes Sø, we had some lovely company of Mette, our guests Søren and Karen Marie, and Jørgen with Igor! We also caught this year’s third Red-backed shrike (Rødrygget tornskade). Apart from that, we had a few Lesser and Common whitethroats (Gærdesanger og Tornsanger), Blackcaps (Munk) and some other species.

Red-backed shrike, female/ Rødrygget Tornskade. Photo: Søren Leth-Nissen

Checking the fat score on female Blackcap/ Munk. Photo: Søren Leth-Nissen

Grå fluesnapper - Spotted flycatcher 

In between the rounds we occupied ourselves by making “music” with grass, competing who can throw a pine cone the furthest into water, listening and dancing to actual music and also changing some of the more worn nets..

 

After returning to the station we had a short rest, some of us went to have a nap after lunch and then were woken up at the news of an Aftonfælk seen nearby! We hopped on our bikes and first looked for it across the Fyrvej, and then changed our location to Saftevandsbakken where we got to see it sitting in a bush, flying and the resting in a different tree! It  was a lovely observation just before the pouring rain started. Naturally, we came back home quite soaked, but I was grateful to Karen and Søren for taking my backpack with my camera into their car and saving it from the rain! Unfortunately, they did not get to see the Aftenfalk, but they had a really close observation of a Hobby (Lærkefalk) and an overall an exciting day with a high species diversity and a long list of new species for them, too! It seems like they came to the right place!

Calm before the storm.

When we came back, I finished preparing for our discussion meeting on ageing some birds that we’ve caught this season. We had a closer look at Jays, Little bunting and Pied flycatchers. Everyone’s now a Pied flycatcher expert and can’t wait the next one and apply the newly learnt knowledge! Karen and Søren also participated and learnt all about what the primaries, secondaries, and all different kinds of feather groups are and what we look at and for when ageing birds!

The ageing session. 

Now Jonas is cooking dinner using the recipe of our previous guests and friends Kristine and Martin! We love their curry!

Tomorrow morning is forecast to be rainy, so we will sleep in until 6am and will go ringing to Kabeltromlen a little later!

Today’s ringing at Jennes Sø:

Gransanger 1

Gærdesanger 5

Løvsanger 1

Rørsanger 1

Grå fluesnapper 1

Bogfinke 1

Tornsanger 3

Munk 2

Rødrygget tornskade 1

 

Klik her for at se dagens observationer af fugle i Skagen

 Klik her for at se dagens observationer på dofbasen af Rovfugle i Skagen

Folk: Simon S. Christiansen, Søren og Karen Marie, Jørgen Kabel og Igor, Mette Møller Christensen, Michaëla Berdougo, Rasmus Matthiesen-Juhl, Jonas Pedersen, Mikkel Friborg Mortensen og Laima Bagdonaite.