Enjoying the beach with a seal

Yesterday evening Christian and Yehonatan went out for nightcatching. They managed to catch a Dunlin (Almindelig ryle)! The bird was feeding on the tip of Grenen, while they discovered him.

Early in the morning Christian, Knud and Lars went out for observations in worlds end III. The highlights were 2 european shags (topskarv), 1 pomarine skua (mellemkjove) and 68 brand geese (knortegås). So, the ending of the storm and the nice warm weather now is pretty good for doing observations, it is not that cold outside anymore and the birds are coming closer to the beach.

There are also two rarities in the area around Grenen at the moment. The american scoter (amerikansk sortand) was seen yesterday and today, and a lapland bunting (lapværling) was discovered today.

In the meanwhile, Yehonatan, Simon and I went for ringing to Kabeltrommelkrattet. The first day after the stormy weather where it was calm enough to open the nets again. But contrary to our expectations the birds was not very active. In sum we caught 19 individuals in 3,5 hours. The dominant species were robins (rødhals) and wrens (gærdesmutte). While we were ringing one of our highlights, a song trush (sangdrossel), we heard a pheasant calling from the location of our mist nets. However, when we checked the nets it was not in there but keep going calling in the shrubs next to our nets. Another highlight, this time not related to birds, was a fox really close to our Kabeltrommel-tabel. She was watching us and did not mind when we came near to her. I guess she was hoping for some food, but that did not work.

We also had many visitors today while ringing: Our guests in the apartment Lis and Erik joined us and were really interested in our work. Furthermore, two german tourists were passing by, and two local birdwatchers was also talking to us for a while. As we already stopped the ringing at 10 o´clock because we had no more birds in the nets, I had time to join Christian and Knud doing their observation at the tip. It was very nice to watch the birds in this (for Denmark) warm temperatures.

When Christian and I came back to the station we went for a swim. We were looking forward to go in such a fine weather, but as soon as we touched the water we were not warm any longer – today the water was even colder than the last days. But we still managed to go into the sea and used the very calm water for a little longer swim. And not only we were enjoying the sun, also a young seal was lying next to us on the beach in the sun.

Wednesday is cleaning day, so after cleaning the whole apartment, birders club and laboratory everything is now gleaming again. In between a bus tour from Sjælland arrived and Simon, Yehonatan and I showed them around and told them something about our work here and how we do the ringing of the birds.

While Yehonatan prepared some delicious pasta, Christian and I used the nearly windless courtyard to play volleyball. Let´s hope that the wind will still slow down the next days, so we can put up the net on the beach and play a volleyball game with the whole station team.

Ringing (Kabeltrommelkrattet, Grenen):

Chiffchaff – Gransanger - 1

Willow warbler – Løvsanger - 2

Blue Tit – Blåmejse - 2

Common Whitethroat – Tornsanger – 1

Reed Bunting – Rørspurv – 2

Robin – Rørhals – 5

Wren – Gærdesmutte – 3

Dunnock – Jernspurv – 2

Song Trush – Sangdrossel – 1

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Knud Pedersen, Erik Brodersen & Lis Kragelund, Jens Kirkeby.