New visitors

Before sunrise we were out to Worlds End III, for migration counts. It was a very busy morning, with many birds migrating or attempting to migrate while even more were resting and foraging in the sea or at the ponds on the beach. A passing harbour porpoise (Marsvin) appeared while scanning the horizon. Suddenly we realized a flock of even larger sea-mammals approaching from the vest. Clearly larger than a harbor porpoise, we saw large, dark dorsal fins of several individuals diving and at one point even jumping out of the water. Dolphins! But what species? A later ask for help for identification on our facebook-page lead to bottlenose dolphins (Øresvin) as the most fitting species. (watch the dolphin video here: https://www.facebook.com/Skagenfuglestation/videos/767326867019338/ )

When we finished the counts, we decided to go and look closer to the huge flocks of gulls to read some ring numbers. While picking up our stuff and scopes, hundreds of house and barn swallows started swarming around us. We were wondering what they were trying to tell us, but in a few minutes, we found out. An extremely unexpected heavy rain started. We had no option than to sit and wait for it to stop. Fortunately, it was quite short, and the sun came out a bit so we could even dry a little. We approached the flocks of gulls from behind the sand dunes, to not disturb them and have a good view of their legs. That led us to one of the best spots for observing birds on the shore, especially when there are puddles on the beach.

All the waders were there as well as terns and gulls. We also observed two beautiful juvenile Common shelducks (Gravand)!

After scanning the pond, we also observed a beautiful whimbrel (Småspove). We realized that it was constantly looking at the sky as if it was waiting for something. After a while we heard a flock of 12 whimbrels calling and immediately he called back and joined them.

In the meanwhile, Knud decided to check-out Skagen Klitplantage in the morning and found two two-barred crossbills (Hvidvinget Korsnæb). One adult in awesome red plumage was feeding a 1K bird and was quite approachable. Knud made some incredible pictures!

Late at night, Joost arrived. He is originally from Brussels but came from Finland. He will be staying with us for three weeks. : )

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Christina Ninou, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Gunnar Simonsen, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Joost Van Duppen, Knud Pedersen

Music playing while writting the blog: Morphine - Like swimming (Full Album)