Ladies' night at nightjars

Today actually already started before yesterday was over. We left at 21.15 with Jørgen to Sandmilen where we set up the nets in the same locations as last time since they had proven successful. We were very early this time, so we had finished setting up the nets just before sunset even. I hadn’t expected anything to happen for another hour or so, but we had barely left the last net site when we heard a nightjar (natravn) sing. We stopped to look and actually got a good look at it sitting and flying. That was one of the first times I saw a nightjar in good daylight! It was a pretty male bird. So contrary to my initial plans to wait until it was getting reasonably dark, I turned on the playback already at 22:30. Then we had to wait. Our guests from the apartment also came to have a look, as it was Anders’ birthday and he was hoping for a very special birthday present.

We saw a nightjar here and there before the first net check but did not get a good view of another one. The first net check also did not produce any birds saw Anders and his family went home empty handed but on the way out they still managed to see at least one night jar properly!

The team that stayed back was rewarded with 3 nightjars on the next net check which was about 3 more than most of us had expected. It was two females and one male. It went quite quiet after that and there was a lot of waiting with very little reward (only one more female). The much hoped for morning peak did not come and so we went home with 4 nightjars ringed, meaning that we did not break our own record from last year but at least Jonathan, Oskar and Jørgen were happy because they had never held a nightjar before. It is quite unusual though to have more females than males in the nets and it shows quite clearly that the males are not really defending their territories much any more and the best time for catching them is over. The females are busy breeding now and should better not be disturbed in that so that we can have lots of baby nightjars in a month or two.

After we got home, I just went to the beach to check out our chances of catching terns there tonight. Chances are very small for sure but since it is supposed to be raining all day tomorrow and my sleeping rhythm is completely messed up already, we might as well go and try. We will see what happens.

After something like 4 hours of sleep I got up again to prepare for a ringing tour offered by the lighthouse this afternoon. There were only two visitors but some of our volunteers also joined and we caught definitely more birds than we normally do at this time of the day in the lighthouse garden so our visitors were very lucky and obviously happy. Frank was also happy because it was the first yellowhammer (gulspurv) we caught since he came here: a juvenile from this year - not as yellow as you would hope for, maybe...

The most exciting thing for the rest of the day was Frederik trying to find a yellow-legged gull in a herring gull for half an hour without much success…

We will see what the night might bring.

Ringmærkning (Sandmilen) :

4 Natravn

Fyrhaven:

1 Gulspurv

2 Munk

total: 7

Folk på station : Frank Osterberg, Martina Hillbrand, Taïma Lorentzen, Frederik Johansen, Jonathan Pedersen, Oskar Zeeberg Nielsen, Jørgen Kabel, Anders Rasmussen, Anna-Mette og Dagmar

Klik her for at se dagens observationer fra Dofbasen af fugle i Skagen.