After rain comes sun

Hej!

With a little too much hope to stay dry today, Rosa and I went out to open the nets this morning. After our first control round and a good amount of birds, reality came with big clouds of rain and no wind to blow them away from us. Luckily we had help by Lisa and Simon, who could then ring the birds while Rosa and I closed all the nets we just opened. Our visitors Kevin and Nina and their kids also went out to join us at the ringing and could see some birds first out at Kabeltromlen and then at our trusty tent for rainy weather.

Simon teaching them young

Patientily, Rosa and I waited for the rain to stop, so we could continue the ringing. At 10:30 we could open the nets again and caught some beautiful Bullfinches/Dompap in the following hours. Even the sun came out to dry our wet clothes and equipment. We were also joined by Jeppe and Linda today. They were very happy about the Goldcrests/Fuglekonge we caught.

The observers also had a very cold and wet morning. The migration started only after the rain, but then with some good numbers of passerines migrating in the 45 minutes after the rain. They also saw the Lapland Bunting/Lapværling again. A little Goldcrest/Fuglekonge and Chiffchaff/Gransanger also made it to land on their miration, which is a quite impressive sight to see these tiny birds coming in from the open sea.

After the ringing and observations Rosa and Thomas were driven to Gammel Skagen to start the Fulmar Survey, where they walk along the tip to look for washed up dead Fulmar/Mallemuk. On their walk they found two. But of course they also looked for live birds and had some nice encounters on the way.

A Guillemot/Lomvie came pretty close to the shore, so Thomas could take a nice picture

After the two came back from their walk, Rosa held a little presentation she prepared about night catching and ageing of common waders at Grenen. Now we are prepared for more successfull nights out in the night with a thermal and a torch!

Totally not staged photo, after the talk was already over, because we wanted a picture for the blog

Just as the sun was setting and jet another rain cloud came we were surprised by a very beautiful rainbow. We understood it as an excuse for the rain shower this morning.

Every glance out of our windows might hold a surprise

And the ringing history of a Purple Sandpiper/Sortgrå Ryle, that Jonas Kjærgaard was able to fotograph and read the ring numer of yeterday, came in to our Email inbox today. It was ringed as a juvenile on the 22.9.24 on Svalbard (Spitsbergen). That means, it travelled 2286 km in 20 days!

Highlights from the observations:

Lapland Bunting/Lapværling

Ringing (Kabeltromlen):

Gærdesmutte - 4

Rødhals - 11

Rørsanger - 1

Munk - 1

Fuglekonge - 5

Dompap - 1

Lille Dompap - 4

Total = 27

Link to today's observations from observers in the area

People at the station: Ragnar Smith, Rosa Hicks, Thomas Weston, Mara Glane, Emma Fabre, Simon Sigaard Christiansen, Lisa Vergin, Jeppe, Linda, Kevin and Nina Kuhlmann Clausen + kids