Saturday is for seabirds and sooties!

After ten days of recharging on Zealand with the family, it is business as usual with me and Emma going to Worlds End 3, while Thomas and Stella went to ringing. At worlds end 3 Troels, Knud and Jørgen at beaten us by two minutes and were ready to take on the observation counting. And what a day it turned out to be, with plenty of kittiwakes (Rider), alcids (alkefugle), divers (lommer), corvids (kragefugl) and snow buntings (Snespurve)! Even when the standardized counting stopped, we stood fast and kept counting as birds don’t adhere to stuff like timekeeping, but one by one the observers went back inland as they had other stuff do, such as twitching a record late Kentish Plover (Hvidbrystet Præstekrave) at Jerup Strand and other everyday tasks, but I held on till the last banana and lollipop. Before I finally went back to the observatory at 1442; a whooping 7 hours and 22 minutes at Worlds End 3 had netted me 8 Sooty Shearwaters (Sodfarvet Skråpe), 1 Lapland Bunting (Lapværling), 1 Great Northern Diver (Islom), 1 Yellow-billed Diver (Hvidnæbbet Lom) and a very nice European Shag (Topskarv). But the target species of today Pine Grosbeak (Krognæb), didn’t materialize, though one was seen 45 minutes south for Skagen, so Monday might be the day we get them!

I also reached a milestone in the shape of a Woodlark (Hedelærke), which now means I have seen five lark-species this season in Skagen! Four lark species for a whole year anywhere in Denmark would be crazy, but you are hard pressed to get five species in the span of two months in Denmark, considering there has been recorded six lark-species in Denmark!

Bullfinch male and female

Goldfinch!

While the seabird bonanza was going at Worlds End 3, the ringing was a bit more modest with the highlight being the ever beautiful Goldfinch (Stillits) and two chiffchaffs (Gransanger), “sadly” they were merely the common ones, we are still waiting for the Siberian subspecies to arrive! After ringing they went back to the observatory and while they were supposed to ring a Barn Owl (Slørugle) at the rescue center in Jerup, it was cancelled so they went to Jerup to look at the Kentish Plover. After a long day in the field, some light cleaning was done, evening meeting and some dinner, now we are getting ready for a windy day tomorrow. Hopefully we are going to get even more seabirds tomorrow, because there are few things in life better than seabird watching!

Kentish Plover-twitch

Highlights from observations:

8 Sooty Shearwaters (Sodfarvet Skråpe), continues an amazing autumn for this seabird

1 Yellow-billed Diver (Hvidnæbbet Lom), fifth for this autumn

1 Great Northern Diver (Islom), regular, but scarce

1 European Shag (Topskarv), very scarce autumn visitor

1 Lapland Bunting (Lapværling), now a rare autumn visitor

2 Barn Swallows (Landsvale), quite late but somewhat expected

 

Ringing (Kabeltromlen)

Gærdesmutte - Wren: 6

Rødhals - Robin: 4

Solsort - Blackbird: 4

Redwing - Vindrossel: 1

Gransanger - Chiffchaff: 2

Fuglekonge - Goldcrest: 2

Blåmejse - Blue Tit: 2

Musvit - Great Tit: 1

Stillits - Goldfinch: 1

Dompap - Eurasian Bullfinch: 2

Rørspurv - Reed Bunting: 1

Total: 26

 

Ringing (Nordstjernevej)

Blåmejse - Blue Tit: 1

Træløber - Treecreeper: 1

Skovspurv - Tree Sparrow: 1

Bogfinke - Chaffinch: 1

Grønirisk - Greenfinch: 1

Grønsisken - Siskin: 2

Total: 7

 

Ringing (Jennes Sø)

Gærdesmutte - Wren: 2

Rødhals - Robin: 3

Vindrossel - Redwing: 1

Fuglekonge - Goldcrest: 3

Blåmejse - Blue Tit: 2

Stor Gråsisken - Mealy Redpoll: 2

Lille Gråsisken - Lesser Redpoll: 22

Dompap - Eurasian Bullfinch: 1

Total: 36

Link to today's observations from observers in the area