Rarity alert!

The day started quite early, at 5o clock Martin, Joakim and me, took our bikes and telescopes and went up to Verdens ende that used to be the tip of Skagen some years ago. The aim of our visit was to find out if any migratory birds are flying by or maybe find any interesting species flying or swimming in the sea. Rolf was already there with his telescope for some time. Not more than half an hour later he shouted out to us something in a very exciting tone! A rarity!! A surf scoter swimming among a flock of common scoters! We immediately pointed our scopes at it and took a good look of that beautiful bird. Unfortunately, it was a bit far for a picture, but still observing was more than enough! After that exciting encounter, we walked on the beach heading to the tip of Skagen were Kattegat and Skagerak, the two seas, meet creating a line of beautiful waves. We took some pictures there and continued our walk next to the water, on the beach. There were three big flocks of gulls and terns, so we decided to check out the exact species, while try to find any color rings. Three tern species were there as well as three different species of gulls and some with color rings.

When we came back, we stayed at the birders club where we met up with Mark and Simon and talked a bit with the tourists. An interesting meeting with Mark took place at the birders club, were he talked to us about film making and creating short videos and exchanged some nice ideas (...more to come in the next days ;) ).

It was a good day with that rarity we saw and now the “rarity wall” in the house is full, having in total 10 rarities for Denmark this year!

Rarity wall

Interesting to say though, is that after dinner around 8o clock we decided to go look for the duck again. So, we prepared ourselves for a long walk. As soon as we got close to the beach, right next to the observatory, Mark looked at the sea with his binoculars and decided to put up his scope just to check! There it was! The evening golden light and the smaller distance, were it was swimming calmly in less waves this time, were the best conditions for a better picture. We got it!

 Mark Desholm, Simon S Christiansen, Joakim Matthiesen, Martin Y Georgiev and Christina Ninou.