Late night ringing

Yesterday evening, at 11 pm, me, Sean, Mark and Malthe met with Simon and Lisa and we all headed out to Grenen. Our task was to capture waders, terns and gulls to ring. We went at 11 pm because it was important to carry this out after nightfall, in the dark. Simon brought a high power torch to momentarily blind the bird, while Lisa captured it in a net. Me, Sean, Mark and Malthe kept a distance behind them, to allow them to carry out this task without us distracting and scattering the birds. Lisa and Simon managed to capture a Sildemåge (lesser black-backed gull). We brought it back to the lighthouse laboratory, where we measured the gull's wingspan and head and beak length and put a metal ring on its leg. Afterwards we released the gull on the beach and got back home to sleep around 1:30 am. During the walk in the night we "unfortunately" also saw the invasive Racoon Dog (Mårhund) around the small dunes on the beach.

Sean got up again at 4 am to go to Grenen and carry out the morning migratory count. The most unusual sighting was a Toplærke (Crested lark). 

Photo: Erik Christophersen.

Later in the day, Simon and Sean went out to Grenen again to place a base station near a flock of roosting sandwich terns, so that it can collect data from GPS-tagged terns. This is as part of a project from Aarhus University. Afterwards we held a meeting with all volunteers and apartment's guests to discuss the plans for the week and around 6 pm, we had dinner, which Sean cooked.

There was also a very interesting recapture documented today. We received word from Spain that a garden warbler that was ringed here, at Skagen Fuglestation, on the 23rd of August last year, was recaptured in Catalonia, Spain, on the 2nd of June this year!

People: Seán Walsh, Kalina Siwek, Knud Pedersen, Erik Christophersen, Simon S. Christiansen, Mark & Malthe

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