Hej allesammen 

I dag vågnde mig og Oskar op tidlig for, at være med til ringmærkningen, ude ved Jennes sø sammen med Martina og Frank. De første tre timer kom der kun meget få fugle i nettene og efter kl. 7, kom der nærmest ingen fugle i nettene. Men vi var så heldig at vi til sidst fangede en fin lille topmejse i nettet, hvilket var en dejlig oplevelse, og jeg fik lov til at ringemærke fuglen. Ude på ringmærknings stedet, så vi mange Musvåger og røde glenter, som træk syd på. blandet andet så vi måske en mulig steppevåge (Vulpinus )

Taima og Frederik tog morgenobservationen, ude på Grenen tidlig morgen. De så også mange musvåger og rød glenter som trak syd på og nogle måger og terner. Stationslederen Simon Christensen så en hunfarvet Pirol lande i Elllekratet tidligere idag, der er stadigvæk mulighed for at den er der ude et sted. 

Hen på eftermiddagen gik jeg en lille tur for, at kigge på rovfugle, men så ikke rigtigt noget mega spændende. Derfter besluttede jeg mig til, at går op i det grå fyr, for at nyde den fantastiske udsigten og friheden, som tårnet gemmer på 

Ellers en meget stille og rolig dag i skagen, med en dejlig middagslur, lidt regn og sol. Vi håber på, at vi en af de kommende dage kan tage ud og ringmærke natravne, men det skal i nok høre mere om til den tid.

Ringmærkningen: 

Topmejse 1

Bogfinke 1

Munk 1

Tornsanger 1

Gransanger 1

Gærdesmutte 1

Total 6

Folk: Martina Hillbrand, Frank Osterberg, Taïma Lorentzen, Jonatan Pedersen, Oskar Zeeberg Nielsen, Jonatan falke rumle Pedersen og Frederik Johansen, Anders Rasmussen, Anna-Mette og Dagmar

Klik her for at se dagens observationer fra Dofbasen af fugle i Skagen.

Hej allesammen, så er jeg tilbage igen!

Oskar, Jonatan og jeg ankom til Stationen i går, og i dag var så vores første morgen. Martina og jeg åbnede nettene klokken tidligt, og Oskar og Jonatan kom til anden runde. Vi fangede i alt 33 fugle, ringmærkningsdataen står for neden.

Under ringmærkning klokken 08:43 ser jeg en hun-farvet Pirol flyve mod Sardinkrattet, en fugl som nok lige har været på trækforsøg. Mega fedt! Første gang jeg finder en selv!!! Vi lukkede nettene klokken 11:40 og tog derefter jeg til Stationen. 

Taima tog først ud til Grenens parkeringsplads for at dele fliers ud for Det Grå Fyr. Taima fortsatte senere inde i byen, og hun endte ud med at have delt 135 fliers ud!!! Crazy!!

Til eftermiddag var der nogen af os som fik en dejlig lur, og så var det ellers en god cykeltur til Netto og Brugsen. 

Ringmærkning (Kabeltrommeln):

Gulbug 1

Tornsanger 16

Bogfinke 1

Blåmejse 3

Gransanger 3

Gærdesanger 1

Løvsanger 1

Musvit 1

Kærsanger 1

Rørsanger 4

Rødhals 1

total: 33

Folk: Martina Hillbrand, Frank Osterberg, Taïma Lorentzen, Simon S. Christiansen, Jonatan Pedersen, Oskar Zeeberg Nielsen, Jørgen Kabel og Frederik Johansen.

 Klik her for at se dagens observationer fra Dofbasen af fugle i Skagen.

Hej allesamen !
Højdeepunktet i ringmærkning var en flot 1k Bjergvipstjert, hans mor kaldte på ham da vi fandet ham i nettet, men hun blev ikke fanget i nettet.Vi har også fanget en 2k+ jernspurv, for nogle fugle er lidt svært til at bestemme deres alder på den tid af året,derfor må man sige 2k+, hvis man er ikke sikker på at det er en 2k eller 3k+ fugl. 

Omkring 06:00 begyndte det at regne, så vi sluttede ringmærkning tildlig. Derefter gik vi til havnen, der så vi en mærkelig Sule i vand og et par Tejster. Vi var bange for at Sulen ikke var sund fordi den var meget passiv. Til sidst fløg den dog afsted, og vi fik taget nogle gode billleder.

Om eftermidaggen, ankom der 3 nye frivillige : Frederik Johansen, Jonathan Pedersen og Oskar Zeeberg Nielsen. Da de ankom, kiggede de gennem nogle af vores biblioteksbøgerne og tog på en lille Tur ud på Grenen. Derefter spiste vi dejlig Pizza med hjemmelavet pizza dej fra Martina.

Ringmærkning :

1 Bjergvipstjert

1 Munk

1 Jernspurv

1 Solsort

4 Tornsanger

2 Gærdesanger

1 Musvit

10 i alt

Folk på station : Simon S. Christiansen, Frank Osterberg, Martina Hillbrand, Taïma Lorentzen, Frederik Johansen, Jonathan Pedersen, Oskar Zeeberg Nielsen, Joern Kabel, Anders Rasmussen, Anna-Mette og Dagmar

Klik her for at se dagens observationer fra Dofbasen af fugle i Skagen.

So, after having to move it because of the rain the night before we finally went out with Lars Bo to catch nightjars (natravn) last night. It was the perfect night and it did not take us long to also find the perfect spots to set up nets. While setting them up we heard two nightjars singing already. We had just finished setting up the nets when two guests arrived, Ida and her husband who had stayed in the apartment a while ago but hadn’t gotten to see nightjars so they came back only for this night. They also brought home-made chocolate cake and tea and coffee for us – what a treat!

The mosquitos weren’t quite as bad as expected so it was a fine night really. And it got even better when we were waiting for the first net check and a nightjar suddenly started flying about our heads like a bat. We got a great view of it and it was really only very few meters away. It was little surprise then to find another nightjar in the net at the first check. Even better, we found 2, a male and a female! So that and the cake kept us busy until about 1.30am when we caught the next male. After that, unfortunately, the speakers we use for luring the birds died and so Lars figured it wouldn’t make sense to stay. I didn’t mind getting back early because I still wanted to go ringing in Kabeltrommeln so we packed up the nets and left. Well, before we left we got an even better view of even more nightjars flying around. They are amazing birds, really! Like bats, just better.

Thrushes were already singing when we left so we wouldn’t have stayed much longer anyway and so everybody was happy to go, also to get away from the mosquitos. Little did we know that the mosquitos at Kabeltrommeln were even worse than at Sandmilen today. The mosquitos clearly said it would be raining soon but the weather forecast didn’t and I believed the latter – common mistake committed be tech generation, I guess. Well, so we opened the nets at Kabeltrommeln and we did two net checks with very few birds when suddenly it started raining out of the nowhere and quite hard too. After checking four different weather forecasts we decided to close the nets and not risk anything seeing that we had been catching flocks of young birds lately and there was at least one flock of siskins (grønsisken) moving about the sites where we have the nets – one individual was caught. You don’t want a net full of them when it is starting to rain…

Back at the lighthouse we tried to catch up on sleep lost and then welcomed the new guests in the apartment. Anders, Anna-Mette and their daughter will stay with us for this week and hope for more nightjars.

Finally, Taima and me went to Skarvsøen for the cormorant monitoring. It is good to see that quite a few cormorant chicks are now as big and mobile as the adults and are therefore out of danger of predation. On the other side, we also saw a nest with 4 quite young chicks and a new nest with a female incubating. Unfortunately we do not know if the nest really is new or it has just been missed on the last few visits. It is also very unlikely that juveniles born very late in the year will survive so it is questionable if it is worth the effort but the birds don’t seem to calculate chances like that.

After a nice dinner made once again by our amazing chef from England, Frank, we went to bed early to be a little bit fresher for ringing tomorrow. See what the next week will bring!

Ringmærkning (Sandmilen):

Natravn 3

Ringmærkning (Kabeltrommeln):

Grønsisken 1

Tornsanger 3

Munk 2

total: 9

Folk: Frank Osterberg, Martina Hillbrand, Taima Lorentzen, Lars Bo, Anders Rasmussen, Anna-Mette og Dagmar

Click here for today's bird observations around Skagen

The day started with high expectations as after a stormy few days and quite some rain today there was almost no wind and it was promising to be a real summer day – well, with the local humidity, 26 degrees is literally tropical weather.

The birds apparently also decided to take it easy on such a warm day and the only thing flying in the morning was hundreds of mosquitos. We went to Grenen early to open the nets but came back empty-handed from the first net check. Simon decided that the ringing was too boring and went to go sea-watching instead. We were in the middle of a not so bad net check when the phone was ringing and he called to say he could see orcas close to shore. Seeing that bird numbers were still low and you don’t get the chance to see orcas every day I told Taima to go to Simon and I did the birds on my own for that time. After ringing them, I tried to see the orcas from Kabeltrommeln and I did! Three of them suddenly came up out of the water and just after I saw another one. Simon also took a video through the scope that you can find on our Facebook page.

As for the ringing, very much like yesterday it did speed up later in the morning with lots of juvenile birds. While yesterday it was newly hatched lesser whitethroats (gærdesanger) we mainly caught, today we had several families of whitethroats (tornsanger). It is really good to see that all the effort the parents put into defending the territory pays off! In the meanwhile we are still waiting for the first juvenile reed warblers to stop by our nets. They have definitely been singing a lot too!

Jørgen and Igor hadn’t visited us for a while but they came today to see the orcas and to tell us that the dipper (vandstær) had actually been sleeping in their carport this night. I guess the habitat it chose might not be quite what it was looking for. We can only hope that it will find a spot where it feels more at home. It hasn’t been seen since so hopefully it already went to look for a more suitable habitat.

The warm weather was good for raptors, even though migration should be over by now, honey buzzards (hvpsevåge) are still moving about and we see them almost every day. Today some more than on other days and one had been sleeping just next to one of our nets. We flushed it on the first net check.

Lisbet and Bent already had to leave today since that had a family gathering to attend to. We hope to see you again next year! On Sunday our next guests will arrive.

Since this night looks clear we will go for nightjar catching tonight. Wish us luck – we will need it (maybe more so than the Danish football players)! We will write about our success or lack thereof tomorrow.

Ringmærkning (Kabeltrommeln):

Bogfinke 1

Gransanger 1

Kærsanger 1

Rørsanger 4

Gærdesanger 1

Tornsanger 13

Musvit 1

total: 22

Folk: Frank Osterberg, Martina Hillbrand, Taima Lorentzen, Simon S. Christiansen, Erik Christophersen, Jørgen Kabel and Igor.

Click here for today's bird observations around Skagen

Hello all!

With over 40 birds in the mornings ringing, it was a busy session! at around 07:30 we had 24 birds in the period of one round, mostly consisting of juvenile first years which, apart from the odd rare and migrant, is what we hope for this time of year. With families of whitethroats, common and lesser (Tornsanger/ Gærdesanger) and Great tit (Musvit) along with some lone first years it was nice to see them be so successful and all in good condition. After the mandatory power naps, me and Taima did some data updates for the freezer list with Simon and went up to the juvenile Dipper (Vandstær) that had been found feeding in the ditch along Bøjlevejen. Luckily, it was very inquisitive coming very close on some occasions watching it feed along the sides of the bank.

Bent and Lizbeth went up to the cormorant (Skarv) colony and saw the nesting birds including the nesting red-necked grebes (Gråstrubet lappedykker) then they went for stroll around Grenen and into town for a coffee for a relaxing last day here at Skagen, they also then joined us for their last meal and provided the ice cream. Martina cooked dinner, a Potato, leek and spinach Strudel which was very nice and we're thankful for the extra portions which will be used the following day!

Ringing totals; 40

Solsort 2

Munk 2

Gulbug 2

Musvit 10

Blåmejse 2

Rørsanger 4

Kærsanger 2

Grå Fluesnapper 1

Tornsanger 5

Havesanger 1

Gransanger 2

Løvsanger 1

Click here for today's bird observations around Skagen

Godaften ! 

Martina vågenede tillidt i morges for at tage op på Grenen og tælle Terner, desværre var der ikke så  mange som hun havde håbet. Næste gang vil vi prøve at tælle Terne en sen aften, måske er det bedre. Bagefter, reparede hun vores cykler, det er vi rigtig glæde for, mange tak Martina !

Herefter åbnede vi nettene i fyrets have, vi håbede vi kunne få nogle fugle i nettene før regnen komme, men desværre kom der ingen fugle i nettene. Da regnen kom besøgte Frank og jeg  oplevelsescenteret i fyret, det var rigtigt oplysende og godt lavet. 

Lisa Vergin tog til Batteriskoen og fik set en Vandstær i dag ! Her er et flot billede af Thom Kongerslev :

Ingen ringmærkning i dag.

Klik her for at se dagens observationer fra Dofbasen af fugle i Skagen

Klik her for at se opsummeret observationer af rovfugle i Skagen

Folk på station : Lisbeth og Bent , Simon S. Christiansen, Frank Osterberg, Martina Hillbrand, og Taïma Lorentzen

It has been an interesting morning at Jennes Sø where we do the CES ringing once every 10 days. The goal of the CES is to have a monitoring of breeding birds which includes the breeding success. Today we saw the first signs of such a success as we did have several juvenile birds (born this year) in the nets. The best treat, of course, was a net full of blue tits (blåmejse), 4 juveniles with their mother.

Besides that, we also had the first juvenile blackbird (solsort). For all of these the juvenile plumage is quite different from the adult plumage so it is easy to identify them as juveniles. In other birds, like most of the warblers (e.g. gransanger, havesanger, kærsanger, rørsanger) this is not so easy. With experience you can still age those birds as well and today we had 3 chiffchaffs (gransanger) from this year, along with two adults but they were in the nets at different times so probably not one family. Seeing the many chiffchaffs singing everywhere you would also expect a lot more of them.

Just as we closed the nets for the day we also saw a family of crested tits (topmejse) but we did not manage to catch them. Looking at them was fun too, though.

Taima and Frank went to the cormorant colony later for the monitoring at Skarvsøen. The remaining birds are doing well and will probably start to fledge over the next few weeks. When you see all the cormorants flying back and forth and realize just how many weeks it takes for them before their offspring is ready to feed for themselves, songbirds do seem quite lazy in contrast because it usually only takes them about 4 weeks to raise their chicks. On the other hand, many of the songbirds do make use of the time saved by starting another clutch. A female blackbird that we caught today and who was obviously carrying an egg is proof for that. The first brood must have left the nests already and she just started the next right after that. Here is a juvenile we caught today:

When we got back we took the time to look at the moths we caught in the mothtrap during the night. There were some pretty ones, among them this:

Aftenpåfugleøge

In the afternoon Frank and I went out to fix the remaining nets at Kabeltrommeln in order to be prepared for autumn migration when it starts. For now, however, the winds picked up quite a bit during the day and will stay strong throughout tomorrow so there will not be any ringing tomorrow. We have other work to do for now and hope for better weather from Friday onwards.

Ringmærkning (Jennes Sø):

Blåmejse 5

Gærdesmutte 1

Gransanger 5

Munk 1

Kærsanger 1

Gærdesanger 2

Tornsanger 3

Solsort 3

Sangdrossel 1

total: 22

People: Frank Osterberg, Martina Hillbrand, Taima Lorentzen, Simon S. Christiansen, Bent and Lizbeth Sorensen.

Click here for the raptor summary for the Skagen area

Click here for today's bird observations around Skagen

Godaften !

This morning was a good day for ringing! it was Martina's first ringing session back here in Skagen, we caught a good diverse range of species with some rung less often at Kabeltromen as well as more of this year's juveniles so that's always nice to see. We had a small family of Gærsanger with 2 adults and 2 first years, other highlights were an adult male sisken (Grønsiskin), two first-year Nuthatches (spætmejse, mørkbuget), and a juvenile crested tit (topmejse) along with the usual more common birds which are always a pleasure to catch. whilst between checking the nets I also found a bee-eater (Biædere) flying directly above the site and Simon spotted a spotted redshank (Sortklire) also flying over earlier in the morning and a wood sandpiper (Tinksmed) along the shore. so overall a productive and interesting morning. During the ringing, we were visited by our current guests next door Bent and Lisbeth, where we demonstrated how the nets are used and when we capture a bird how they're processed which they found very informative. We were also joined by another small group where Simon gave a small introduction to ring marking and showed up close the birds in the hand and also around some nets. 

   We then came home and had a short nap before Taima and Martina went back to Kabeltromen to do some net maintenance until we regrouped later also joined by Niels for a nice vegetarian lasagne prepared by Bent and Lisbeth which was very nice, we then enjoyed some cake and coffee brought by Niels which was also very enjoyable, later on this evening will be the Nightjar guided tour organized by Niels which Bent and Lisabeth will be attending so we hope they see and hear plenty of nightjars which we will update in tomorrows blog. 

Ringmarking (kabeltromen):

Topmejse 1 

Spætmejse, Mørkbudget 2

Bogfinke 3

Gransanger 3

Kærsanger 1

Rørsanger 3

Gærdesanger 5

Tornsanger 3

Grønsisken 2

Solsort 2

Havesanger 1

total: 26

People: Frank Osterberg, Martina Hillbrand, Taima Lorentzen, Simon S. Christiansen, Lars Bo, Niels Eriksen, Bent and Lizbeth Sorensen.

Click here for the raptor summary for the Skagen area

Click here for today's bird observations around Skagen

Hi everybody !

The day started with goodbyes to Jonas and Michaela. They will be greatly missed, thank you for all of what you have done at the station.

We then went to Buttervej to find Red backed Shrikes (Rødrygget Tornskade). We saw a meadow pipit (Engpiber) some green finches (Grønirisk) and some pretty flowers, and finally only saw one Red backed shrike. 

skov-gøgelilje , Platanthera chlorantha

Kragefod , Comarum palustre L. 

We went back through the city to treat ourselves to hot-dogs, then picked up Martina with Simon at the train station. We hope to learn a lot about bird ringing from Martina in the next few weeks. 

No ringing today. 

Klik her for at se dagens observationer fra Dofbasen af fugle i Skagen

Klik her for at se opsummeret observationer af rovfugle i Skagen

People : Simon S Christiansen, Martina Hillbrand, Michaëla Berdougo, Taïma Lorentzen, Frank Osterberg, Lisbeth og Bent og Jonas Pedersen .