Who needs sleep?

So, after having to move it because of the rain the night before we finally went out with Lars Bo to catch nightjars (natravn) last night. It was the perfect night and it did not take us long to also find the perfect spots to set up nets. While setting them up we heard two nightjars singing already. We had just finished setting up the nets when two guests arrived, Ida and her husband who had stayed in the apartment a while ago but hadn’t gotten to see nightjars so they came back only for this night. They also brought home-made chocolate cake and tea and coffee for us – what a treat!

The mosquitos weren’t quite as bad as expected so it was a fine night really. And it got even better when we were waiting for the first net check and a nightjar suddenly started flying about our heads like a bat. We got a great view of it and it was really only very few meters away. It was little surprise then to find another nightjar in the net at the first check. Even better, we found 2, a male and a female! So that and the cake kept us busy until about 1.30am when we caught the next male. After that, unfortunately, the speakers we use for luring the birds died and so Lars figured it wouldn’t make sense to stay. I didn’t mind getting back early because I still wanted to go ringing in Kabeltrommeln so we packed up the nets and left. Well, before we left we got an even better view of even more nightjars flying around. They are amazing birds, really! Like bats, just better.

Thrushes were already singing when we left so we wouldn’t have stayed much longer anyway and so everybody was happy to go, also to get away from the mosquitos. Little did we know that the mosquitos at Kabeltrommeln were even worse than at Sandmilen today. The mosquitos clearly said it would be raining soon but the weather forecast didn’t and I believed the latter – common mistake committed be tech generation, I guess. Well, so we opened the nets at Kabeltrommeln and we did two net checks with very few birds when suddenly it started raining out of the nowhere and quite hard too. After checking four different weather forecasts we decided to close the nets and not risk anything seeing that we had been catching flocks of young birds lately and there was at least one flock of siskins (grønsisken) moving about the sites where we have the nets – one individual was caught. You don’t want a net full of them when it is starting to rain…

Back at the lighthouse we tried to catch up on sleep lost and then welcomed the new guests in the apartment. Anders, Anna-Mette and their daughter will stay with us for this week and hope for more nightjars.

Finally, Taima and me went to Skarvsøen for the cormorant monitoring. It is good to see that quite a few cormorant chicks are now as big and mobile as the adults and are therefore out of danger of predation. On the other side, we also saw a nest with 4 quite young chicks and a new nest with a female incubating. Unfortunately we do not know if the nest really is new or it has just been missed on the last few visits. It is also very unlikely that juveniles born very late in the year will survive so it is questionable if it is worth the effort but the birds don’t seem to calculate chances like that.

After a nice dinner made once again by our amazing chef from England, Frank, we went to bed early to be a little bit fresher for ringing tomorrow. See what the next week will bring!

Ringmærkning (Sandmilen):

Natravn 3

Ringmærkning (Kabeltrommeln):

Grønsisken 1

Tornsanger 3

Munk 2

total: 9

Folk: Frank Osterberg, Martina Hillbrand, Taima Lorentzen, Lars Bo, Anders Rasmussen, Anna-Mette og Dagmar

Click here for today's bird observations around Skagen