B is Bluethroat, M is for Magpie and N is for Nightjar

Today was a very exciting day with bird ringing! Hanelie and I opened the nets this morning, which included the three new nets that we put up the last couple of days. We had some of our usual birds, such as Marsh warblers (Kaersanger), Reed warblers (Rørsanger), Blackcap warblers (Munk) and Lesser whitethroats (Gaerdesanger). However, it was on the last round that we caught a female Bluethroat (Blåhals) in one of the new nets! It was a nice treat to see this bird at the end of our morning ringing! 

Pictures of the Bluethroat (Blåhals) caught during our ringing session - Photo credit: Hanelie Sidhu

Afterwards, we rested for the exciting night of European nightjar (Natravn) ringing ahead and prepared dinner for a total of 10 people from both the volunteer group and those in association with the lighthouse! Hanelie made her famous The Blyth recipe, Leona made The Redwing dessert, and we had a salad as well. Please see below for the recipes if you’d like to make them for yourself!

 Meanwhile, Lisa and Simon sought to catch a magpie (husskade) in their garden! Low and behold they caught a beautiful individual in their net. Notice the long rectrices and iridescent feathers on this bird :) 

Pictures of the magpie (husskade) caught in Simon and Lisa’s garden - Photo credit: Lisa Vergin

Once we reached the 21:00 hour, we prepared to head towards Sandmilen for our nightjar (Natrvn) ringing. We set up four nets and also put out sound recordings to attract the birds. 

Picture of setting up the net for nightjar ringing - Photo credit: Simon S. Christiansen

 At the midnight hour, we were super fortunate to catch our first nightjar! This bird was a recapture (ring number: M8440) originally ringed on the 9th of July in 2021 as a 3+ female. Simon noticed that the bird last year was about to lay a clutch of eggs last year too. It was cool to have a recapture from the summer before! Around the 2am mark, we also captured a new nightjar male in the nets. It was really cool to see the different wing band sizes to be able to differentiate between males and females! 

Pictures from ringing the male nightjar -  Photo credit: Simon S. Christiansen 

 We took the nets down around 3am, when the sky was beginning to lighten again. It was a really cool treat to see some amazing birds throughout the day!

 Thank you for your support and for keeping up with our blog! Please be encouraged to visit us at the Skagen Fuglestation and check out our nearly updated birder’s club!

 Have a wonderful day and enjoy the longest day of the year!

With aloha,

Megan 

Birds ringed today at KAB:

Gransanger: 3

Blåhals: 1

Gulbug: 1

Gærdesanger: 3

Kærsanger: 7

Rørsanger: 10

Tornsanger: 1

Bogfinke: 3

Munk: 5

Solsort: 1

Total: 34 birds

 Additional birds: 

Husskade: 1

Natrvn: 1

Observations of the day in DOFbasn from observers in the area

Raptor summary of the raptors entered on DOFbasen today

People at the station: Simon S. Christiansen, Lisa Vergin, Olaf   Hanelie Sidhu, Alice Scalzo, Leona Gottschalkson, Megan Nepshinsky, our guests Jesper and Hanne and Lars Pedersen and Olaf Lou

Click here for the following recipes:

The Blyth recipe

The Redwing dessert recipe