The one that got away

Today, the weather was too bad to go ringing. Me and Judith chose to sleep long while Inga, Christian, Laia and our guests went up early to go out and go birding. Inga, Christian and Laia went to World’s End to go observing but soon after they arrived they were forced to go to Sælbunker and continued their observations there. Highlights included two Great Skuas (Storkjove) and the long-staying Black Scoter (Amerikansk Sortand)! Our guests spent most of their day taking walks, their highlight was a close encounter with a Seal!

In the meantime, me and Judith got up and had breakfast. I did some personal stuff on the laptop and sorted our picture archive! Everyone came back from observations and we had the lunch/breakfast that Simon brought with him. Then, Christian and Judith went out to open the nets in the lighthouse garden so they could hopefully catch some birds and show how the ringing process works to the many tourists that were here today. They caught not a single bird, but they had some nice experiences with the tourists that were there! Then Inga left already, she was just here for two days to visit Christian. It was really nice to have her!

In the meantime, I went outside to do some birding at Fyrvej. The birding in general was pretty good with many Robins (Rødhals), Goldcrests (Fuglekonge) and Siskins (Grønsisken). And I found a European Stonechat (Sortstrubet Bynkefugl) and a Slavonian Grebe (Nordisk Lappedykker), both are scarce species here!

European Stonechat (Sortstrubet Bynkefugl)

Slavonian Grebe (Nordisk Lappedykker)

I walked around the camping for a while and saw some more stuff such as a late White Wagtail (Hvid Vipstjert) and eight Bramblings (Kvækerfinke) that were foraging with some Chaffinches (bogfinke). Since there were many birds around, I decided to walk even further, up to the white lighthouse. My eyes fell upon a nice patch of pine trees, close to the beach. There was a Chiffchaff (Gransanger) in it. I walked a bit further in and saw a bird going around the corner in a split second. I really didn’t see what it was but it triggered me anyways so I decided to stay. After 30 minutes of waiting, playing some sounds and more waiting I walked to the place where I had seen the bird at first. Almost immediately I flushed a bunting, a bunting in such an isolated patch of pine trees! Exciting! It flew around the corner again and gave few ‘tick’ calls so I knew it was something good, my feelings were right! I saw it flying away but couldn’t follow it due to the trees that were in my view. Sadly, me and other birders that came to help failed to refind the bird. Major bummer!

Brambling (Kvækerfinke)

While searching for the buntings, birding was still good with many Reed Buntings (Rørspurv) and Yellowhammers (Gulspurv) in the area as well. And a nice flock of birds with four species of Tits, not so common for me. But no ticking bunting…

Coal Tit (Sortmejse)

I went back to the observatory after two hours of searching, in the meantime Laia, Judith and Christian went for their daily swim. After they came back they noticed that there was a White Wagtail (Hvid Vipstjert) sitting inside Birder’s Club! Christian immediately wanted to catch it and so they did! Not a regular species to catch here, and it’s the only bird to be ringed today!

After that we had the daily evening meeting, and while we did we saw a Black Redstart (Husrødstjert) at the lighthouse! It has been around for a while, maybe we’ll try to catch it soon. Then, we had dinner and after dinner there was a night tour. There were quite many tourists attending the night tour which was good to see! Laia and me were night catching while Simon was guiding the tour. We looked at the tip and at Kabeltrommelkrattet to see if we could find any birds but there weren’t any around. We noticed good migration of Redwings (Vindrossel) and Song Thrushes (Sangdrossel) and we even managed to see a Song Thrush migrating in the flashlight.

Ringing totals:

White Wagtail - Hvid Vipstjert - 1

Total: 1

People: Michael Ancher, Simon S. Christiansen, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Laia Soler Iglesias, Koen Stork, Inga Stolz, Birthe Christiansen, Britta & Lotte, Knud Pedersen, Torben Sørensen.