CISTUSANGER!!!! Again??!?!?!

Today started off with a bit of a sad situation. Andrew and I woke up bright and early to check the weather forecast as we had seen the night before that there may be a thunder storm headed towards us. Unfortunately, the radar forecast was correct and we found ourselves staring at a lightning storm outside our window. And with that, we decided to delay opening the ringing nets for an hour. Then at 05:30 AM, we got up from our slumber once again only to find the radar to state that it would be torrentially raining in about an hours time. With that we called our Dark Night (Simon), and he made the executive decision to cancel ringing for the day. Ragnar, our bravest soldier, ventured off to Worlds End 3, after the heaviest rain had passed and proceeded to have a relatively slow morning. A single Northern Fulmar (Mallemuk), a few migrating waders, a migrating Garganey (Atlinand) were the highlights of the morning. By 9 AM, everyone at the station had re-arisen and we decided to open to Fyrhaven nets before the next rain storm came. Shortly thereafter, we had to close the nets after one round due to wind and rain. No birds. Saddened, we waited for the next part of our day -- but we were shocked to hear on Zello that another ZITTING CISTICOLA (Cistusanger) had been found at the Sandormentrak. All of us quickly got our gear and sped out the door. When we arrived a few minutes later, the bird took no longer than a minute before it began to sing and display in front of us. What a cool bird! This represents the 10th Country record for Denmark and the 9th in Skagen. 

Cistusanger

We then spent the next hour wandering around Grenen hoping to stumble across something else, but alas, our efforts turned up nothing else of note. Heading back to the station, we realized that we were getting very low on food, so Andrew, Joe and Ragnar commandeered Simon’s car and went and bought half of Lidl. That should last us all of 3 days! And we were delighted to received fresh havtorn marmelade made by out lovely guests.Then upon there return, we had a great session run by Simon on Skull Ossification and the process of using this method and how it is used. Tonight, we will head to Grenen with the hopes of catching waders in the night. And so, another day passes at Skagen Fuglestation, what will tomorrow bring? We will have to wait and see!

 A recent photo of the current SKAF team! ( Left -> Right: Asia, Ragnar, Andrew, Joe, Rosa, Lucas)

Vi Ses!

People at SKAF: Lucas Corneliussen, Rosa Hicks, Simon S. Christiansen, Asia Kane, Andrew Commins, Ragnar Smith, Joe Zeno, Grethe & Stig