Exciting morning in the field

I got up early with Laia to open up the nets at Kabeltrommelkrattet. Well, it’s not that early any more actually (lucky us). We were opening the nets at 06:30. While we were opening I saw a Short-eared Owl (Mosehornugle) and a Jack Snipe (Enkeltbekkasin)! At 07:00, all nets were open and we were ready to rock! Christian and Simon joined us for the first round and there were quite many birds and good diversity! Our guests also joined for a brief moment and they were really fascinated by the birds in the hand. A nice chance to see birds up close! The weirdest thing we saw during the ringing today was a Dunnock (Jernspurv) that had a piece of wood sticking out of it’s back! It were two pieces actually, and one of the pieces came out with quite a bit of Dunnock-flesh on it! Nasty stuff! The ringing was altogether very fun but observations in the ringing area were also really good!

The wood that came out of a Dunnock.

When I was doing a round with Christian we managed to find a nice Yellow-browed Warbler (Hvidbrynet Løvsanger). It was around the nets so we played a little bit of the song to lure it into the nets. It reacted pretty well but we didn’t manage to lure it in. But we had good views of it! Having decent views of a YBW is not that common (for me at least), most of the times you only hear their typical ‘tseeweet’-call. Other good observations from the ringing place included a fly-over Great White Egret (Sølvhejre), a fly-over group of 8 Bearded Tits (Skægmejse) and a hunting Hen Harrier (Blå Kærhøg). And Simon managed a fly-over Bohemian Waxwing (Silkehale) while we were on the round, unlucky us!

In the meantime, Judith and Knud spent their morning enjoying the Lapland Buntings (Lapværling) and Snow Buntings (Snespurv) that were still on the beach. Migration over sea was pretty quiet but there were many Gannets (Sule) around, foraging close to the shore. Judith missed the early morning, she noticed that her tripod was incomplete when she got to World’s End 3, so she went back to look for it only to find the missing part in the basket on her bicycle. She was not entirely sure that it was fully complete so she even went back to the observatory to get the other tripod. Anyways, she got back at 09:00 and had a nice morning with Knud! After observing, they went to the beach to enjoy the buntings and they found the Horned Larks (Bjerglærke) as well!

After that, we all went back to the observatory. We had lunch and Stina joined us. She and Laia entered the ringing data while Judith and Christian prepared for the German tour that would be starting at 13:00. Laia did something wrong while entering the data so I had to do it all over again with her. Christian, Judith and Stina hosted the German tour, they prepared the nets and were all set! But there were no Germans to attend the tour. So they ended up ringing a few birds and closing the nets by themselves. They caught a Goldcrest (Fuglekonge) that we ringed this morning at Kabeltrommelkrattet, interesting to see this birds moving through the area! They also managed to catch a Goldcrest by hand! It was the first time a Goldcrest could be put in the system as ‘caught by hand’!

After the ‘tour’, me, Laia and Simon went to Skagen to go shopping and we brought all our empty cans and bottles. We handed in all our cans and bottles and managed to get more than 330 crowns back! After the shopping we went birding at Batteriskoven. Quite a nice and peaceful place, it also looked really good to find vagrants! Now there was not really anything of notice around, except good numbers of thrushes, mainly Song Thrush (Sangdrossel) and Redwing (Vindrossel).

 
Birding at Batteriskoven

Ringing (Kabeltrommelkrattet, Jennes Sø, Fyrhavene):

Wren – Gærdesmutte – 9

Dunnock – Jernspurv – 1

Robin – Rødhals – 15

Blackbird – Solsort – 1

Song Thrush – Sangdrossel – 3

Redwing – Vindrossel – 1

Blackcap – Munk – 3

Chiffchaff – Gransanger – 6

Goldcrest – Fuglekonge – 15

Coal Tit – Sortmejse – 1

Blue Tit – Blåmejse – 3

Great Tit – Musvit – 3

Chaffinch – Bogfinke – 1

Eurasian Siskin – Grønsisken – 1

Lesser Redpoll – Lille Gråsisken – 148

Bullfinch ssp europaea - Lille Dompap – 1

Total: 212

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Koen Stork, Laia Soler Iglesias, Flemming & Christl, Lene Kappelborg, Jens and Gulmaj, Lyngvig-Banden.

Writing music: Bizzey