A slow day after a fun evening.

Good evening everyone,

Today we will start this blog by mentioning last night’s evening. As you already know, it was Robbe’s 24^th birthday so we had planned to celebrate it after the activities of the day were done. We started with a nice dinner in town at Café Knuth’s together with Simon. The food was really nice, and we enjoyed also spending some time altogether outside of the station. After that, Simon drove us back to the station and we got ready to play Wingspan. This is a strategic board game that includes many dozens of European and American bird species. While Hanelie was explaining the rules to Alice and me, who had never played, Robbe was on the phone with his family wishing him a good birthday. Once everyone was ready, we played the game which took us quite a while, but we also had good talks, snacks, and drinks throughout and we quickly figured out that all of us are pretty competitive. In the end, Robbe won this one, but we can just pretend that was because we were nice to him on his special day. After that, we all got to try the carrot cake and ginger biscuits made by Alice and they both tasted amazing! Robbe also made a wish while blowing out his 12 candles. Let’s see if the wish is fulfilled in the coming days.

Then it was already late in the evening, especially compared to our usual rhythm, so Hanelie and I decided to head to bed. On the other hand, Alice and Robbe still had some energy, so they went to a nearby bunker and danced their heart out to music there. They came back and fell asleep closer to the time when we usually get up. Luckily for all of us, Simon kindly granted us a morning off so we could recover from that fun evening and get some sleep.

As a result, this morning we all woke up at different times but all of us enjoyed a very chill morning. We had not had the chance to take our time like this all together in the morning before, so we all appreciated it. Simon also ended up sleeping in later than usual before joining us at the station. We all still found some time to make progress on different personal tasks we had such as nocturnal flight calls recordings for Hanelie or online courses and university work for the others. Then, at around noon, Gustav who is staying here for a long weekend arrived. He has been a volunteer for the station before so for those of you who have been reading the blog for a while you probably have read some written by him.

Spectrogram of a night flight call of a Common Moorhen (Grønbenet rørhøne)

After we all had lunch, Gustav went out on a bike tour hoping to see some rare birds and enjoy the surroundings. He managed to see a Hen Harrier (Blå Kærhøg) alongside other bird species. Meanwhile, the rest of us stayed at the flat and kept working on our different tasks or resting. We also enjoyed another yummy piece of cake with tea in the afternoon and felt very British while doing it. Robbe also went to do some groceries and Hanelie got started on the dinner early on. By the lighthouse, some people also enjoyed a cold swim in the sea to celebrate the current Winter Bathing Festival lasting until Sunday.

Today’s observations in Dofbasen from observers in the area

We also got some information back for a colour-ringed Bewick’s Swan (Pibesvane) seen by Finn Laugo that Simon entered online. This individual was ringed in its breeding ground in Ninitskya, Russia, on the 16th of August 2017. The ring was then read in Schleswig-Hollstein, Germany, and now seen near Skagen this year. We also learnt that a European Robin (Rødhals) ringed here in 2017 was found dead in France.

(Bewick Swan)

Tonight, Hanelie and Gustav are going night catching with Simon in Frederikshavn. In tomorrow’s blog, you will therefore get to hear if they got any exciting captures but also about the morning observations and ringing.

Sum of the Raptors in the area based on observations typed into Dofbasen the same day

Good night,

Marion

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Robbe Cool, Hanelie Sidhu, Alice Scalzo, Marion L'Huillier-Hunsinger and Gustav Nyberg.