Rain & Rainbows

Today, I slept in, while Sean and Simon headed to World’s End 3 for sunrise. They did, however, not stay very long, since soon it started raining and even though they tried to sit it out, more and more bouts of rain came over and they finally gave up. Before that they saw the regular arctic skuas (almindelig kjove) and, again, Simon managed to take very good pictures of one of them (an immature bird).

Besides, another manx shearwater (almindelig skråpe), and, a not so common sight in Grenen: a golden plover (hjejle), but only passing. And antoher of Simon's pictures to brighten up a rainy day: of a common ringed plover (stor præstekrave):

I got up at six, looked out of the window and saw a rainbow, which intensified over the morning, so I went to take a picture, which looks quite nice:

Simon and I went shopping in town, we cleaned and oiled the station's bicycles (lots of rust because of the salty air by the sea) and did some office work afterwards. I also went downstairs to visit the exhibition (which is new every year, so I haven’t seen this one. I think I discovered there a nest of a reed warbler (?) that we found last year when cutting the net lanes at Skarvsøen. Also, a lot of stuffed birds made it feel a little like home on Grenen beach – they made a very good choice there and I can totally recommend – if you are not too familiar with the local birds – to visit the exhibition before going to the beach, because it will help you to recognize a lot of the birds you will see out there.

Mind you, the skuas are not part of the display. Maybe in future series they have to be added if they keep hanging around. On the other hand, the so-called sandstorm indoors does not really feel much like a Grenen sandstorm at all, so for that, you will have to go to the real beach on a windy day. But in the exhibition, you (or your children) get to play with sand quite a bit and to try out really fancy, high-tech microscopes!

Most of all, however, the day was spent relaxing, reading novels, playing computer games etc. For my part, I checked the weather forecast about every 5 minutes, really hoping that tomorrow will be good for ringing. It will be, I am sure!

Also, as announced earlier, we will try to ring storm petrels (stormsvale) this weekend. Due to the weather forecast, we will have a first try tomorrow night (Thursday to Friday), then a second try the night after. If the announced activity on Saturday night can happen, depends on the weather. We will keep you posted.

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.

Postscript: Simon cooked his first communal dinner tonight. I am not quite sure if it was the first time ever that he cooked. Sean was a great mentor to him, in any case, and shoutout to Simon’s mum: you can be proud of your son, he did very well!