Doing our due diligence at Skagen Harbour

Another day has passed at Skagen Bird Observatory, im still here, but I am only updating the blog when something exciting has happened, today was one of those days. Me and Simon went to the harbour to feed the gulls and even though there were no Iceland Gulls (Hvidvinget Måge) or Caspian Gulls (Kaspisk Måge), we still managed to find a pristine Lesser Black-backed Gull (Sildemåge) 1k that could be a good candidate for a Baltic Gull/ssp. Fuscus (Baltisk Sildemåge) and a very nice American herring gull-lookalike, which managed to induce some excitement.

Pristine, crisp Lesser Black-backed Gull in almost full juvenile plumage, which could indicate ssp. fuscus, but we will probably never know

American Herring-gull lookalike - note the almost black tail and dark unpatterned underpart and greyish brown colour. But the devil is in the details, the barring on the uppertail coverts and undertails coverts is not dense enough

After emptying the bread reserves into the harbour for the sake of the gulls, we went to eastern pier to check the harbour mouth and rocks flanking the harbour bassin for any funny birds, and in the not too strong wind, there were a good handful of eiders (Ederfugl) and Common Scoters (Sortand) on the water and plenty of gulls on the rocks. But as I looked into the bottom of the harbour bassin with scope I saw a familiar sight of a dark duck, slightly bigger than a scoter with a pale head and breast, and a pinkish orange bill – BOOM 1k male King Eider (Kongeederfugl)! Crazy to refind it in the harbour after no sightings of it for a week at Grenen. We got into the car and drove to the southern end of the harbour to get better light and a closer look for the awesome bird. When we arrived, Erik Christophersen had just arrived and it didn’t take many seconds before it was refound and everyone got to see it much better. It was so good to see it this well after mostly seeing at a huge distance under somewhat unfavorable conditions at Grenen, Skagen.

Erik Christophersen on the left and Simon on the right

King Eider 1cy male, probably the best, if not only photos of a King Eider in this plumage taken in Denmark. Erik Christophersen took this awesome photo. Check his flickr here

After a few minutes Knud Pedersen arrived with the rest of the Christmas Dinner guests and they all got a good look at this rare visitor. Satisfied with this round of harbour checking, Simon took me to Lidl were I did some shopping and then I was dropped of at the lighthouse. Now I have made pizza, that should last me for a few days. The next few days of strong winds could possibly bring some cool birds.

Link to today's observations from observers in the area

People at the Station: Ragnar Smith, Simon S. Christiansen