An outstanding last day

This morning, I went out for observations with my dad. We went to the Høyen Fyr area. When we arrived, it was very cloudy and dark and there was light, drizzling rain and strong winds. There were very few birds around but we quickly noticed the good migration of Siskins (Grønsisken), we counted almost 1000 birds in just a few hours. We continued birding and managed Waxwing (Silkehale) Woodlark (Hedelærke), two Skylarks (Sanglærke) and a Golden Plover (Hjejle) that were all migrating to their winter quarters. On the ground were not so many birds, to say the least. It was actually very quiet. If your highlights are around 20 Yellowhammers (Gulspurv) and a few Crested Tits (Topmejse), you know it’s not a great morning. However, that changed when we decided to check the nearby industrial area and horse fields. Here, there were more birds around and we managed to find a nice flock of Tree Sparrows (Skovspurv), Black Redstart (Husrødstjert), White Wagtail (Hvid Vipstjert) and a nice mixed flock of finches and buntings. At one point, we heard a group of crossbills coming. They were Parrot Crossbills (Stor Korsnæb), we counted 26 birds and at least most of them were Parrot Crossbills, really nice!

In the meantime, Laia, Judith and Simon were waking up and opened the nets at Fyrhaven to do some ringing for the tour for 75(!) pupils that would start at 09:45. Christian spent the night at the summer house of his parents and joined as well. He, Simon and Gitte were guiding all the children and their teachers. My dad and I stopped by for a brief moment to see some ringing and have a look at how the tour was going, it looked really fun! All the kids were really interested in all the things we do here at the bird observatory. Simon, Chris and Gitte also said that it was a good tour and that the kids really had fun. Always good to see tat there are so many potential nature lovers in the next generation! It’s not always you guide a group of pupils that are all very interested in the research and monitoring we do here.

At the same time all this was happening, Esger was on his own doing observations from World’s End 1. As I said before, conditions were not that   with strong winds and light rain and very dark weather in general. But still he managed to see quite some cool birds. He had really good numbers of Siskins as well, more than 2000! Apart from this, he managed to see Lapland Bunting (Lapværling), Great Skua (Storkjove) and Water Pipits (Bjergpiber). But probably the most rare thing he saw, was the absence of Rolf! Apparently, Rolf was doing observations from a bunker because of the weather condition.

After having a look at the tour, me and my dad decided to some birding at Grenen. As we walked along the tractor track we managed some Bearded Tits (Skægmejse), three more Waxwings and another group of Parrot Crossbills!! This time, we only heard the Parrot Crossbills so we don’t have an exact number but I estimate there were around 5 birds. Then we arrived to the beach and the dunes, we saw a Shorelark (Bjerglærke) and two Snow Buntings (Snespurv). And we saw a group of 6 Whooper Swans (Sangsvane) going south, they came straight in from sea. Visible migration at it’s best! We searched for the Black Scoter (Amerikansk Sortand) since it was a lifer for my dad. Unfortunately we didn’t get lucky. We walked back to the parking and I showed my dad the ringing place a bit, and we managed to find a Siberian Chiffchaff (Sibirisk Gransanger) there! Maybe the bird we caught yesterday and the day before yesterday? During our long walk we also had a few easy new species for my dad’s triplist (he was at Falsterbo last week and is keeping track of his number of species) such as Bullfinch (Dompap), Sanderling (Sandlober) and Red-throated Diver (Rødstrubet Lom).

After that, we got back an the others were back as well. We had lunch and then Stine came to help us with the usual stuff as checking the data in our database on errors. Since I’m leaving tomorrow, I did some packing. Christian had a look at our ‘Dompap-issue’, and we decided to label only birds with wings shorter than 87 mm as ssp europaea and with wings longer than 89 mm as ssp pyrrhula. If the bird has a wing length of 87-89 mm, we don’t assign it to subspecies level.

Esger was still out birding and he called that he found the Black Scoter again! Me, my dad and Gitte rushed out to see it and we succeeded! We were both very happy with this lifer for my dad so we decided to make a weird selfie which is kind of tradition when we find/see a good bird. I included it here, a suiting end to my stay here at Skagen Bird Observatory. It was a really cool opportunity and I would really recommend it to anyone interested in birds and keen to learn more about the subject. Thanks for having me!

Ringing (Fyrhavene)

Solsort: 2

Vindrossel: 3

Fuglekonge: 2

Gærdesmutte: 1

Total: 8

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Laia Soler Iglesias, Koen Stork, Asger Lykkegaard Møldrup, Gitte & Jens Peder, Knud Pedersen, C+M Stolz, Manon Stassen, Vincent Stork, Rattie