More windy days and old friends visiting

Today, again, we could not go out ringing, this time because of wind. Instead, all of us went to World’s End 3 for a seawatch. We were greeted by the by now resident Arctic Skuas (Almindelig kjove) and a rather beautiful sunrise, which is quite common here but it was Simon's first so he took this nice picture:

Other than that, it was a rather slow day for migration – the wind probably stopping especially smaller birds from migrating when they are not in a hurry. There were some rare species seen, however, including a pomarine skua (mellem kjvoe) which was playing cat and mouse with one of the arctic skuas right at the tip. Also, several manx shearwater (almeindelig skråpe) were seen roosting far out at sea.

Some of the shorebirds seem to have left over night but a few sanderlings (sandløber) and 5 dunlins (almindelig ryle) were left together with the locally breeding common ringed plovers (stor præstekrave). Also, the terns are still on the beach, hunting in the shallow waters and taking the fish to their always hungry offspring.

Since there were so many people already doing the sea watch, after the first hour I left the group to go look for coulor-ringed gulls, with quite some success.

The greater black-backed gulls (svartbag) are all registered in a data base, so we can immediately get their information: these two were both ringed in July 2013 as chicks, so they just celebrated their 10th birthday each. Both were ringed in Nordjylland, however for the last 10 years the one on the left in the picture has spent them mostly around Hirtshals, whereas the one on the right spent most of the last 10 years in the Netherlands and was frequently reported from there.

In the afternoon it was the usual office work of entering data, cleaning and cutting reeds – this time a Skarvsøen to get ready for the next CES ringing which is going to be on Friday.

Besides that, I had the privilege of ringing a kestrel, although the circumstances were a little sad: The poor bird had flown into a window and was picked up by animal rescue. They kept and fed him for three days, after which they decided he should be well enough to release. They were kind enough to drive by the station before for him to be ringed. When we wanted to finally let him go, though, it seemed he was not yet strong enough to fly, so the rescue team had to take him back. But they say he has been eating well, so we hope that in a day or two he can finally fly off again!

Simon and Lisa picked up a swedish friend in Frederikshavn and went afterwards to Stensnæs where they swam to a small sandy island with the basestation in hope that it will download data from GPS-tagged Sandwhich Terns that potentially roost in the area down there.

In the evening, we had another of Sean’s famous dinners and went to bed early to be ready for another seawatch tomorrow, seeing that the wind will again be too strong for us to do anything else.

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

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

Ringing (Lighthouse):

Tårnfalk (Kestrel) - 1

Total: 1