Unsuccessful search

Today,  we began the day at 3.30 am. By 4:15, Sean and I met with Knud Pedersen at Grenen to begin the morning count. We spent about 3 hours counting migrant and resident birds. We saw arctic skuas, arctic and common terns, scoters, cormorants, gannets, a kestrel on land and two rare caspian terns. By 7.00 am a fog came in and we headed down the beach to look at roosting terns and gulls and read and record their color rings to report later. We went back to the lighthouse at 10:00 am. Sean and Simon worked on recording data from the previous weeks’ ringing.

At around 15:00 Simon, Sean and I were taken by Oluf Lou to Hirtshals to look for a stepped great shrike. It is a rare sighting and it was recorded in Hirtshals that morning. We only got a glimpse of it before it flew away. Much to Simon's dismay, the bird had disappeared while he was still taking out his optics. We spent more than two hours there, looking for the shrike on behalf of Simon, but it started raining and the search was unsuccessful. We were back at the lighthouse for 18:30. The volunteers had a meeting with Simon to debrief and make a plan for the following day.

A link to today's observations from volunteers and local observers.

Skagen People: Sean Walsh, Kalina Siwek, Simon S. Christiansen, Jesper & Margrit