Sleepless nights

The weekend kicked off a little early on Thursday night with an impromptu Storm-petrel (Stormvale) and Nightjar (Natravn) ringing session with the calm weather. Simon, Lisa, Martina, Simon K., Benjamin and I began setting nets and speakers up at the beach beside the lighthouse around 10pm while we could still see somewhat, and also put nets into the field across the road to try to catch Natravn. A moth trap was also set up in the lighthouse garden. Stormvale are known to wander the seas alone sometimes, and disperse at night, particularly younger birds of 2k or 3k. We caught our first one at around half 1 in the morning, a European Storm-petrel (Lille Stormsvale), 3k. The station staff and volunteers ringed the bird and took measurements, before taking it to the birders club for the crowd to take pictures of.

The second Lille Stormsvale was caught after 2am, also a third calander year bird. I opted to stay in bed this time, though, as Martina and I had to go ringing at the CES site, Skarvøen. We left at 03:20 to have the nets open by 04:30. It turned out to be a very good day for this site, which made us sad that we had to cut our ringing short at 6 hours due to the CES.

Tonight there will be Stormsvale ringing again, so I'm writing this trying to stay awake.

Ringing totals (Skarvsøen): 49

Solsort: 2

Musvit: 2

Rørsanger: 18

Lille Gråsiskin: 3

Gærdesanger: 2

Tornsanger: 6

Munk: 1

Rørspurv: 3

Blåmejse: 2

Skægmejse: 2

Gransanger: 8

Løvsanger: 1

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

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