Where are the Sandwich Terns (Splitterne) ?

This morning, Rasmus and me woke up early to try to find roosting Sandwich Terns (Splitterne) but this was unsuccessfull. We only saw some roostings gulls (måge) and Common terns (Fjordterne).... It has been several days that we haven’t seen them roosting, only fishing... It might due to the amount of tourists in Skagen right now.... People go out early and late to watch the sunrise/sunset and this might disturb the Sandwich terns (Splitterne)....   

Common terns (Fjordterne) adult and juveniles

Rasmus and me decided then to split up and go bird-watching and do some countings of other species. There were hundreds of Common Scoters (Sortand) in the sea, on their way to migrate. I also went for some "seal watching"...before tourists scare them off !



On my way back, I also saw two now almost fully grown Common plover (Stor Praestekrave) chicks, and one of them was one the chicks we ringed ealier in the season. Surprisingly the second chick was not ringed, although we had ringed two full clutches....  Maybe we had missed one of the chicks?

Common Ringed Plover chick ringed

In the afternoon, we went to survey the Cormorant (Skarv) colony and our new guests, Uller, Lotte, Maya and Max came along. The chicks are of adult size right one, and start to resemble juveniles from last year.... Which makes it tricky to count them ! And unfortunately, we found out today that 3 more nests have been predated, in the Western part of the colony this time.... Hopefully the chicks fledge very soon and there won’t be more predation... We also saw some chicks from Red-necked Grebe (Gråstrubet lappedykker), which was very nice !

Red-necked Grebe (Gråstrubet lappedykker) chicks

In the end of afternoon, Marc and his two children, Lærke and Malthe arrived at the observatory and will stay for 2 weeks here, helping with the work at the observatory.

A future volunteer, Kristina, who will spend the autumn in Skagen, also joined us for a couple of days, to have a first idea of how it will be like to work at the observatory later on.

Now the station is full again !

People:  Simon S. Christiansen, Amandine Doré, Rasmus Matthiesen-Juhl, Marc, Lærke and Malthe Desholm, Kristina Sønderkjær, Uller, Lotte, Maya and Max

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