All good things must come to an end

Back on the morning obs after a few days of doing some sidequests, it was really cold and you could feel winter was coming. Me and Emma went out to Worlds End 3, where Knud was waiting for us. With the cold winds, the birds followed, though quiet, some movement of razorbills (Alk) was going on, but the star of the show was definitely a nice Glaucous Gull (Gråmåge) 1k resting with all the other gulls on the beach in front of us! First of the season and a new species for Emma! Though it was only sitting there for five minutes, it was plenty of time to enjoy it, until a bunch of hapless tourists scared them away, a daily occurrence but c’est la vie. Other highlights were a nice White-tailed Eagle, same from yesterday, sitting on the beach and a Merlin migrating southeast. While at the obs we got a visit from Magnus and Johanna, volunteers from the spring team, which was nice, a pleasant break from the monotony.

Magnus and Johanna lending a hand at the ringing

While all that was going on at Worlds End 3, the ringers were having their last standardized ringing season, as the ringing season stops 20/11, but tomorrow the weather will be horrible for ringing, so today is the last one and we also had to close down the nets.

Greenfinch

Last bird of the season: a Bullfinch male!

So almost immediately after obs, we went back to the observatory, packed some hot water, cookies and went out to Kabeltromlen to help packing it down. It only took three hours of going back and forth with all the ringing stuff before the Kabeltromlen was officially shut down until spring! But we still got the Old Lighthouse Garden were we are going to  do plenty of ringing and hopefully catch something cool. Tomorrow the northly winds really kick in and the snow has already set in with “Thunder Snow” hitting area.

Shutting down the ringing among rising tides of winter

Highlights from obs:

Glaucous Gull 1k, first of the season

White-tailed Eagle 2k, danish ringed bird

Ringing (Kabeltromlen)

Rødhals – Robin: 1

Solsort – Blackbird: 1

Fuglekonge – Goldcrest: 1

Skægmejse – Bearded Tit: 4

Grønirisk – Greenfinch: 1

Dompap – Bullfinch: 2

Total: 10

Link to today's observations from observers in the area

People at the station: Thomas Weston, Emma Fabre, Ragnar Smith, Mara Glane, Simon Sigaard Christiansen, Knud Pedersen, Johanna Veentjer, Magnus Houen Lauritsen