Winter Wonderland

Thomas looks out of the window and everything is white. Mathilde and I join him immediatley and yes: everything is now covered in snow! 

More snow and less wind made the migration count today more enjoy able than the one yesterday. The amount of birds, which are migrating, is now pretty low, but even in this cold day around 300 Redpolls (Gråsisken) flew towards the sea at World's End 3. Luckily, they decided to turn around and don't risk the long fly over the dangerous water in these conditions. A Great Nothern Diver (Islom) passed by. The danish and german name of it (Eistaucher) fit now well to the weather, since there is now Ice on all small ponds in the area. Since the sea was very flat, I cunted the roosting ducks. I counted 446 Common Scoters (Sortand), which were more than I would have expacted. A Scaup (Bjergand) was feeding with some Scoters. Maybe the best bird of the morning was a young Lesser Black-backed Gull (Sildemåge). At this time of the year there should be realistic chances for the northeastern subspecies fuscus. Espacially in this plumage they can look very similar to intermedius, so the identification of the subspecies by plumage is not possible. If you know from where the bird is, you can concluse the subspecies often from its breeding range. Unfortunately, our bird was not ringed. So it stays just a late LBBG. 

In the afternoon, Mathilde, Thomas and I walked to the supermarket to buy in loads of stuff. On the way we enjoyed the snow and took more nice pictures. In Batteriskoven we flushed a Woodcock (Skovsnepe). The way back was tough, since we had headwind and it started snowing again.

Tomorrow is our last migration count. The conditions will be rough again, but we are looking forward to count there one last time this year. 

Today’s observations on Dofbasen from observers in the area.

People: Mathilde Ducroz, Thomas Weston, Simon Kiesé.