Arrival of the volunteers!

Today I woke up on my first day at the Bird Observatory. I arrived late in the evening yesterday so it was great that I could sleep till 9 AM. The sun was shining through curtains in my bedroom and when I looked outside I was delighted to see a whole group of Eiders (Ederfugle) bobbing on the Kattegat.

When I woke up, Lucas and Lauren were already up and going. It was nice to meet them, and Lucas showed me the area around the station. We already saw the (to me) first nice species like, Rock pipit (Skærpiber), Common Crossbill (Lille Korsnæb) and Velvet Scoter (Fløjlsand).

When we got back to the Observatory, we all left together on a twitch for Taiga Bean Goose (Tajgasædgås). But when we arrived there were only a few Geese of other species, so it did not look good for our quest for the Taiga Bean Goose (Tajgasædgås). We didn’t succeed in finding it, but it was nice to see the area.

Bewick's Swan (Pibesvane) with color leg ring

Along the way, we noticed a large group of Swans so we decided to check them out. It was a mixed flock of Bewick's (Pibesvane) and Whooper Swan's (Sangsvane. Between the smaller Bewick's Swans (Pibesvaner), there was a bird with a yellow colour ring on its leg. We tried to read it after which we had to leave to catch Lauren and Lucas's train. Once they were dropped off at the train station we continued our quest for the Bean Goose and the colourring code. The Taiga Bean Goose (Tajgasædgås) was still nowhere to be found but we were finally able to read the code on the Swan this time with a little extra effort!

After a longer while we managed to read the color ring

Afterwards we went to check the harbor in Ålbæk if there were Ruddy Turnstone's (Stenvender) or other waders and we found a nice group of Turnstone's. Simon said he would like to try to catch them at some point, and the group was compact enough to catch them so that story may be continued.

Roman Photographing Turnstones (Stenvendere)

Later, we picked up two new volunteers Janna and Cora. Back at the Bird Observatory, we had another evening meeting and got a tour of how everything works here.

You can read a presentation of us new volunteers elsewhere on this webisite on this link.

Looking at Cranes at Sørig Enge

Now Simon cooks a delicious smelling meal for us. Tomorrow awaits the start of the season with migrations counts at Grenen, and the migration has started so that we are looking forward to it!

We recieved some interesting information from Lisa Vergin about a GPS-tagged Taiga Bean Goose (Tajgasædgås) that passed Skagen late afternoon on the 23rd February. It started it's migration in Thy and later flew above Skagen on its way to Sweden. You can see it's track below.

Taiga Bean Goose (Tajgasædgås) passing Skagen on it's migration North on the 23rd February.

Highlights from the Observations:

Bewick's Swan 8 (at Sørig)

Turnstone 23 (Ålbæk Havn)

Link to todays observations in Dofbasen from the Skagen area

Ringing (Fyrhaven):

Gulspurv - Yellowhammer: 2

Total: 2

People: Roman Spildooren, Simon Sigaard Christinasen, Cora Köberle, Janna Ouedraogo, Lucas Corneliussen & Lauren Homan.