Thrush (drossel) bonanza

Esben and Judith were the ones to get up early and opened the nets at Kabeltromlekrattet today - as always before sunrise. Laia and me joined later for the ringing and I did a bit of migration counts in between. Michael was out at Jennes Sø trying to catch some redpolls (gråsisken).

The highlights in our nets at Kabeltromlekrattet were the thrushes today! We got blackbirds (solsort), a redwing (vindrossel), a song thrush (sangdrossel) and, as a very rare birds in the nets, a mistle thrush (misteldrossel). From the local thrush species, only a fieldfare was missing...

redwing - vindrossel

song thrush - sangdrossel

mistle thrush - misteldrossel

The misteldrossel was only the third one ringed by Skagen Bird Observatory (Skagen Fuglestation) so far. The other two were caught in 2011 and 2014.

Michael managed to catch lesser redpolls (lille gråsisken) and also some tits (mejser).

Roughly at the same time, Simon were almost driving over some waxwings (silkehale), that were drinking water from the street. He was very surprised to see them, but managed to hit the breaks in time.

Back at the observatory, we welcomed Yotam to the team! He will stay until end of the month and we are glad to have such an experienced ringer joining us. Today he came from Århus and took bus and train to get to Skagen. He was impressed by the number of buzzards (våger) he could see from the train on the fields beside the railroad.

Flemming from the café at the Grey Lighthouse is collecting stamps with birds on them from around the world and tries to take pictures of all the species in real life. If you are more interested, you can check out his facebook page here: My bird stamp - My bird photo. Judith got a letter from her familiy in Austria the other day with a white-tailed eagle (havørn) stamp on it that Flemming saw while emptying the mailbox. Judith gladly gave him the letter with the stamp and in return Flemming gave her a beautiful ringed plover (stor præstekrage) cup. Thank you Flemming!

Then we had one of our moult sessions in which we discussed some of the more interesting birds of the last weeks that we took pictures of. Among them were some tricky to age blackcaps (munk) and wrens (gærdesmutte).

In the evening Morten, Kent, Ole and Rasmus arrived for the upcoming danish rarity committee meeting that will be hosted by us. With everyone joining, we had a large dinner provided by Simon tonight.

While I'm writing these lines, Laia, Judith, Esben and Yotam are out trying to catch woodcocks (skovsneppe) and owls (ugler) during the night. Esben and Yotam went to the closest area around the lighthouse and saw around 8 skovsneppe and managed to catch one! Laia and Judith went to the area around the stadium in Skagen and also caught one! Good job, team!

woodcock - skovsneppe 1

woodcock - skovsneppe 2

Ringing (Kabeltromlekrattet + Jennes Sø)

Common Blackbird - Solsort - 2
Redwing - Vindrossel - 1
Mistle Thrush - Misteldrossel - 1
Song Thrush - Sangdrossel - 1
Lesser Redpoll - Lille Gråsisken - 5
Eurasian Tree Sparrow - Skovspurv - 1
Eurasian Blue Tit – Blåmejse – 3
Great Tit - Musvit - 4

Total: 18

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Christian Stolz, Judith Kloibhofer, Laia Soler Iglesias, Esben Hansen, Yotam Lehnardt, Michael Ancher, Flemming + Christel, Jørgen Kabel + Igor, Søren Brinch, Morten Bentzon Hansen, Kent Olsen, Ole Zoltan Göllen, Rasmus Due Nielsen.