Two Bavarian Junior Rangers visiting!

It’s our first day in Denmark after our flight from Munich landed in Aalborg yesterday. This morning began at 6 am, we were getting ready for our trip to Skagen to visit the Bird Observatory. The team of the Station was up even earlier than us (which is way too early to be honest), counting the birds at the sea while sitting on some dunes. Unfortunately, it was too windy to catch and band or ring birds. So, after we arrived in Skagen we immediately joined the Team at World’s End Number 3. No, we didn’t see Jack Sparr- Captain! Captain Jack Sparrow.

The coolest bird we saw at the Tip of Skagen was the Turnstone. He just kept turning those stones as if his life depended on it. Well, it really depends on turning stones, because he needs to find food.

Another fascinating thing were the Gannets diving headfirst into the stormy waves of the sea. After we finished counting birds for hours, we watched the gulls roosting on the beach, just living their life. We tried to read the numbers on the rings we discovered on some of their legs. We learned that great black-backed gull has ‘Leberkas’ colored legs. (‘Leberkas’ is a national dish in Bavaria. You must come to Bavaria and try it. Now.)

While World’s End Number 4 arrived in form of a gigantic thunderstorm (Thanks Thor) and made us think that we would die – or at least that’s what we thought would happen – we entered the data from the count of the early morning into the computer. After we ate a much-needed lunch, we tried to open the nets in high hopes of catching one or two birds, but life decided to disappoint us and let it rain…again. Instead, we opened a magical freezer and looked at birds. They were dead. That is a weird thing to write, but it was interesting to look at birds so close without them flying right away or attacking us.

After the rain shower, we decided to make a short bike tour to Jennes Sø. On the way there we kind of lost someone from the team. But it’s okay, he was happy in the bushes on his dangerous quest to take an epic picture of a Crested Tit. Very dangerous.

It was a fantastic start for our two weeks in Denmark. Thank you very much for reading this. I suggest you read more of this blog whilst you still can, before I find you. Okay, that was a joke. But if you’re still interested in the work of the Bird Observatory you can click on more entries for more interesting Information.

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Christina Ninou, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Knud Pedersen, Selina Lagerbauer, Lea Krieger.

Soundtrack while writing this blog entry: Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton: Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)