The Autumn team

For the first time in a while, I slept in today. Martina was unfortunate though, as she was woken up by the lighthouse alarm going off at 1am. At 5am, she went out to Grenen to attempt to do a roost count of gulls and terns in the poor weather.

Unlike most weeks recently, there were very little in the way of roosting birds. And to add to the despair, a person walking the beach kept walking back and forth between gull roosts, flushing them and re-flushing them as they tried to settle back down somewhere. Martina gave up the roost count after a while. She was, though, happy to see five Almindelig Kjove (Arctic Skua) resting on the beach when she arrived.

Today we also welcomed a young birder, visiting Skagen for the week, Benjamin Bech. After he arrived, we opened the nets in the lighthouse garden for a while but only caught one Gransanger (Common Chiffchaff). We saw a few birds go directly over the nets.

A while after Benjamin left the station and the nets were closed, Martina and I went into Skagen town to check out the gulls and cormorants at the harbour, but didn't find much there either. Afterwards, we headed to Netto to meet the newest volunteer, Simon (the 2nd)! He is an 19 year old birder & trainee ringer from Germany who is staying at the station until December. When Martina and Simon went out to the beach at night to place the base station for hopefully recording tagged terns at Grenen beach, Simon could already proof his photography skills on the skuas:

Tomorrow he, and Benjamin, will join us on our morning observations from sunrise.

Skagen People: Seán Walsh, Martina Hillbrand, Simon Kiesé, Simon S. Christiansen & Benjamin Bech.

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

Ringing (Fyrhaven)

Gransanger (Chiffchaff) - 1

Total: 1