Waiting game

Our routine broke today as for the first time in what feels like forever, there was rain in the early hours of the morning; during our usual hours of operation. All of us were awake by 4am, but none of us, neither ringers nor observers, could do our jobs with the rain. We waited and waited and watched the radar continually extend the rain forecast from stopping at 4am, to eventually stopping at 7am. Only then could we leave to open nets.

Simon left a bit earlier than us ringers with some excitement on his face to go observing, even as there was still some rain. His instincts were right, as he managed to find a Sydlig Nattergal (Common Nightingale) singing at Grenen! These birds are only seen (more often just heard) once or twice a year at Skagen, so it was a nice find.

Opening nets at Kabeltromlen was a grueling task this morning. The nets were sopping wet, and heavy with water. Putting the nets up often resulted in a quick spraying of one of us with rainwater. I had two sticks break trying to put up the water-logged net shelves, which was very inconvenient. Thankfully, once opened, the nets dried themselves out fairly quickly. They also began catching birds immediately, as we had two Kærsanger (Marsh Warbler) in nets as we opened them. Even though we began ringing three hours after sunrise, the rain clearing brought us many migrants. On the radar, it looked like Grenen was the only place in Denmark, or at least in Jutland, that was raining, so there must have been lots of passerine birds waiting to migrate once the rain cleared. The next rounds would be full of birds, with anywhere up to eight birds each net check round. The highlight of the day was a late Kvækerfinke (Brambling) which should have left long ago by now. There was also a male Gulspurv (Yellowhammer) recapture from 2021, which was a very pretty bird to have brighten up our day.

Due to our late start, we were all quite sleepy and just napped the rest of the afternoon away. Simon decided to go 'twitch' some Skovspurv (Tree Sparrows) because he has not yet seen them this month.

And that brings us up to date.. it feels weird, despite the long day due to the late start we really didn't get up to much.

Reed Warbler (Rørsanger) - 5

Eurasian Blackcap (Munk) - 8

Willow Warbler (Løvsanger) - 2

Common Chaffinch (Bogfinke) - 3

Icterine Warbler (Gulbug) - 2

Blackbird (Solsort) - 1

Marsh Warbler (Kærsanger) - 4

Sedge Warbler (Sivsanger) - 1

Common Whitethroat (Tornsanger) - 1

Chiffchaff (Gransanger) - 1

Common Whitethroat (Tornsanger) - 3

Hawfinch (Kernebider) - 2

Total: 28

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

Sum of observations of raptors on DOFbasen from today