So many nice birds today in the mist nets! Viktoria and I opened the nets today at 4:30 and Simon, Oluf and Jan joined us for the first round, which was really helpful because we were busy with many birds…

Foto: Jan Speiermann

Already in the second round we caught two waders, a Waterrail (Vandrikse) and a Common Snipe (Dobbeltbekkasine). Waders are always exciting, especially for Viktoria and me, as we both come from regions in Germany where they are not common.

In the meantime, Martin and Amandine had a rather slow morning at the migration counting. Amandine took a photo of the sunrise through the telescope which looks amazing! Also, they observed a Eurasian Nuthatch (Spætmejse) attempting to migrate East. 

Later that day, we had some more beautiful birds:

a Fieldfare (Sjagger),

an adult male Redpoll (Lille Gråsisken),

and in the last round two juvenile Bearded Tits (Skaegmejse). You can see that the right bird is a male, because it already has a bright orange-yellow bill. On the left you can see a female, as the bill is blackish.

After the ringing we had lunch and we typed in the data from the ringing and the migration counting. In the afternoon Simon gave us a lesson about skull ossification, which can help us for aging birds in autumn. He showed us some examples on birds from the freezer.

In the evening our new guests Jan Hjort Christensen and Kristine arrived. 

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Dobbeltbekkasin - Common Snipe - 1

Dompap, Lille - Bullfinch - 2

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat - 1

Gransanger - Chiffchaff -2

Gråsisken, Lille (cabaret) - Redpoll – 3

Gulbug – Icterine Warbler - 1

Gulspurv - Yellowhammer - 3

Havesanger - Garden Warbler - 1

Kærsanger - Marsh warbler - 7

Løvsanger - Willow warbler - 5

Munk - Blackcap - 3

Rødstjert - Common Redstart - 1

Rørsanger - Reed warbler - 2

Rørspurv - Reed bunting - 2

Sjagger – Fieldfare - 1

Skægmejse – Bearded Tit - 2

Tornsanger - Common Whitethroat - 14

Vandrikse - Waterrail - 2

Total: 53

Aflæsninger (Kabeltromlen):

Dompap, Lille – Bullfinch – 1

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat - 1

Gransanger - Chiffchaff - 3

Gråsisken, Lille (cabaret) - Redpoll – 2

Munk – Blackcap – 1

Rørsanger - Reed warbler – 1

Total: 9

People: Viktoria Mader, Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Amandine Doré, Oluf Lou, Jan Speiermann, Kristina Sønderkjaer

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

This morning, Viktoria and me went to open the nets at Kabeltromlen, while Amelie and Martin went for migration counting at the End of the World 1. Simon and Knud joined us later to help with the ringing. The weather stayed foggy and moist for a while, and we got very few birds in the nets.

While waiting for the next round, I wished that we would catch a Wood warbler (Skovsanger)… And very surprisingly, in the next round check, we had a Wood Warbler !

In the last net check, when we were closing, we suddenly got a lot of birds in the two last nets ! Some Yellowhammers (Gulspurv), Reed buntings (Rørspurv) and Redpolls (Lille Gråsisken) !

On their side, Amelie and Martin had a slow morning, not many birds were migrating, probably due to the weather, and they joined us for the last round.

Back to the observatory, we entered the data collected in the morning, and build up a moth trap in the lighthouse garden. Let’s see tomorrow morning if we catch anything !

At 2pm, Simon had a ringing guided tour at the Lighthouse and after helping with the practical part, Amelie, Viktoria, Martin and me decided to go to Skagen for a small excursion to the art museum.

We really enjoyed it and we discovered the history of Skagen through the painters that have lived there, especially Anna Ancher.

After the museum, we went for some waffles, something we had been talking about for weeks, but we hadn’t found the opportunity yet! This afternoon in Skagen was a nice break !

We came back home in late afternoon and shared dinner cooked by Viktoria. Tomorrow, we will go ringing and migration counting again, and we hope for a more busy day !

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Gråsisken, Lille (cabaret) – Redpoll – 3
Gulspurv – Yellowhammer – 2
Havesanger – Garden Warbler – 1
Kærsanger – Marsh warbler – 1
Løvsanger – Willow warbler –    4
Munk – Blackcap – 1
Musvit – Great tit – 1
Rørsanger – Reed warbler – 5
Rørspurv – Reed bunting – 4
Skovsanger – Wood warbler –   1
Tornsanger – Common whitethroat – 4

Total: 27

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

People: Viktoria Mader, Martin Grienenberger, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Amandine Doré, Knud Pedersen, Jørgen Kabel & Igor, Kristina Sønderkjær, Gunnar Simonsen

Yesterday evening we set up mist nets at Jerup Strand in order to catch Terns during the night. Beautiful sunset!

The night started slowly, and the first bird was a first year Redshank (Rødben), followed later in the morning by a Common Tern (Fjordterne).

We slept long today and started cleaning the station and the lab!

Almost all shoes are in order now - especially wellies (rubber boots) are important here - such as for ringing in Kabeltromlen that we plan for tomorrow morning.

In the afternoon, Lisa opened the freezer and we had a very interesting dessection session with a Great Crested Grebe (Toppet Lappedykker) in the Grey Lighthose yard - that even attracted a visitor from South Africa!

Ringmærkning (Jerup Strand):

Rødben - Redshank - 1

Fjordterne - Common Tern - 1

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

People: Amandine Doré, Viktoria Mader, Lisa Vergin, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Martin Grienenberger, Gunnar Simonsen, Esben E. Hansen, Kristina Sønderkjær

This morning Viktoria and I left early at half past four to open the mist nets in Grenen, Kabeltromlen. Lisa, Simon and Kirsten then joined us for the first round. For Kirsten it is the last day in Skagen today, so she was very happy to be able to join the ringing today. She will come again at the beginning of October and practice even more!

Meanwhile Amandine was at World’s End 1 to count the migrating birds with some talented birdwatchers.

We had a really good, sunny ringing day with many visitors and a lot of birds. Viktoria ran for a Sparrow Hawk (Spurvehøg) and we were able to ring it! Lisa helped me very well, so I managed it quite okay and this was definitely a highlight for me!

This is a juvenile female, which you can, among other things, see by the bigger size. A female can have wings up to 256mm, while the male’s wings only reach a size up to 212mm.

In one of the last rounds we catched a Bluethroat (Blåhals) which you don’t catch often here in Skagen! Amandine was really happy to ring it.

We had a nice morning and a lot of people came by. Igor was happy to watch us ringing, as well!

Now we will hopefully have a good sleep, because at seven we will leave for catching Sandwich Terns (Splitterne) at night at Jerup Strand!

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):
Blåhals - Bluethroat - 1

Blåmejse - Blue Tit - 2

Tornsanger – Common Whitethroat – 11

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat – 7

Gransanger - Chiffchaff - 4

Gråsisken, Lille -  Common Redpoll - 1

Grønirisk -  European Greenfinch - 1

Havesanger - Garden Warbler - 2

Kærsanger - Marsh Warbler - 5

Løvsanger – Willow warbler – 7

Munk – Blackcap – 5

Rørsanger – Reed warbler – 6

Rørspurv -  Reed Bunting - 3 

Sivsanger - Sedge Warbler - 2 

Spurvehøg - Sparrowhawk - 1

Tornsanger - Common Whitethroat - 11

Total: 59

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

 
People: Amandine Doré, Viktoria Mader, Lisa Vergin, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Kirsten, Knud Pedersen, Jørgen Kabel & Igor, Pernille Roed and her kids, Erik

Today, we went on a “road trip” around Northern Jutland to count Sandwich Terns (Splitterne) in different locations, for Lisa’s master thesis about post-breeding dispersal of this species. Victoria, Amelie and me went down south on the Eastern coast, while Lisa’s went counting on the Western coast. For the first time in a while, we went out of Skagen…. It felt like an adventure !

Goodbye Skagen !

We started our counts at Jerupstrand at 7am, and counted very few terns. This is the location where we are planning on catching terns on Sunday evening, and we hope there will be more terns ! Jerupstrand is a nice location to observe waders, and we saw some Curlews (Storspove), Oystercatchers (Strandskade), Dunlins (Almindelig ryle), Bar-tailed Godwits (Lille kobbersneppe), ….

Jerupstrand

We later on went down south to Sæby and counted around 30 individuals.

Saeby

Close to the parking lot, there was a reconstruction of a miniature Saeby, called “Minibyen Saeby ”.

Minibyen Saeby

The weather was very nice, sunny and warm and we were very happy to discover a bit more this region of Denmark ! The coastal cities are very charming, and we enjoyed driving through these landscapes.

After Sæby, we drove back north to Frederikshavn, and counted terns in the harbour…. Unfortunately, there was almost none of them… However, in Frederikshavn, we observed some nice species: a Spoonbill (Skestork), Golden plovers (Hjejle) transitioning to their winter plumage and a Curlew Sandpiper (Krumnæbbet ryle).

We then stopped at Strandby, where the bird activity was low but a lot of people were out on the beach !

Strandby

Next destination was the harbour of Aalbek, not far from Jerupstrand. Here again, we did not see any Sandwich terns…

However, we saw two Greater Black-backed Gulls (Svartbag) with color rings, that we’ve read, which made Viktoria very happy !

We ended up our little road trip in Skagen harbour, in which, once again, bird activity was very low… But this might be explained mostly by the time of the day: it was already late afternoon when we reached Skagen….

Skagen harbour

Even though we haven’t counted many terns, we have enjoyed very much this day travelling around Northern Jutland and do some bird-watching !

Lisa was more successful on her side and counted up to 118 Sandwich terns in one location !

People: Amandine Doré, Viktoria Mader, Lisa Vergin, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Kirsten

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

Amelie and Lisa got up early today to open the mist nets at Kabeltromlen at 5:00, so Amandine, Simon, Kirsten and me were happy to join later for the first control.

Amelie ringed her first bird today supervised by Simon - a Blackcap (Munk). Well done!

After some rainy days the last week, today was a warm and sunny summer day with low wind speed! During the morning, there was also time for teaching, explaining and calibrating the ringers.

It is not always easy to differentiate sibling species such as Reed and Marsh Warbler (Rørsanger og Kærsanger), and some species are difficult to age and we had a closer look at several moult limits. If you want to read more about ageing Pied Flycatchers (Broget Fluesnapper), you might visit our facebook page.

Furthermore, we caught the first Red-backed Shrike (Rødrygget Tornskade) for this autumn season!

Crested Tit (Topmejse)

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen + Fyrhaven):
Tornsanger – Common Whitethroat – 14

Munk – Blackcap – 7

Løvsanger – Willow warbler – 7

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat – 5

Gråsisken, Lille (cabaret) – Lesser Redpoll – 4

Gulbug – Icterine Warbler – 4

Rørsanger – Reed warbler – 4

Havesanger – Garden Warbler – 3

Broget Fluesnapper – Pied Flycatcher – 2

Kærsanger – Marsh Warbler – 2

Gærdesmutte – Wren – 1

Gransanger – Chiffchaff – 1

Rødrygget Tornskade – Red-backed Shrike – 1

Rørspurv – Reed Bunting – 1

Skovpiper – Tree Pipit – 1

Solsort – Blackbird – 1

Topmejse – Crested Tit – 1

Total: 59

Aflæsninger (recaptures) (Kabeltromlen + Fyrhaven):

Løvsanger – Willow warbler – 3

Rørsanger – Reed warbler – 2

Tornsanger – Common Whitethroat – 2

Dompap, Lille (europaea) – Bullfinch –   1

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat – 1

Total: 9

People: Amandine Doré, Viktoria Mader, Lisa Vergin, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Kirsten

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

This morning we opened the nets at 6:00, so a little later than usually because it rained in the early morning. But we still got rewarded with a lot of birds in the first round. A highlight for all of us were two Common Snipes (Dobbeltbekkasin) – one adult recapture and a new ringed juvenile. For Victoria it was the first Snipe to ring and for me the first one in hand, so we were both very glad. Also, in overall the ringing morning was quite successful with 51 birds. Jørgen and Igor visited us in during the ringing, which I am always happy about :-)

Amelie and Knud were out observing and spotted an awesome amount of Fulmars (Mullemuk) – 232 in total! After this successful counting, Amelie joined us in the ringing and extracted her first bird out of the net here, what she did very well. After the ringing at Kabeltromeln, Simon had a ringing tour at the Lighthouse and caught 3 birds he could show – 2 Willow Warblers (Løvsanger) and 1 Common Whitethroat (Tornsanger).

I left the ringing earlier and went to Tversted, Uggeby and Hirtshals to count Sandwich Terns (Splitterne) and tried to read rings. Surprisingly, there were not so many Sandwich Terns, but I managed at least to read 7 rings.

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Viktoria Mader, Amelie Zeller, Amandine Doré, Kirsten, Kristina Sønderkjær, Knud Pedersen Jørgen & Igor, Lisa Vergin

Birds ringed at Kabeltromeln:

Dobbeltbekkasin – Common Snipe: 1

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat: 5

Gråsisken – Redpoll: 1

Gulbug – Icterine Warbler :1

Havesanger – Garden Warbler: 2

Løvsanger – Willow Warbler: 7

Munk – Blackcap: 2

Rørsanger – Reed Warbler: 8

Rørspurv – Reed Bunting: 1

Tornsanger – Common Whitethroat: 23

Birds ringed at the Lighthouse Garden:

Løvsanger – Willow Warbler: 2

Tornsanger – Common Whitethroat: 1

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

 Vejret har været kedeligt og blæsende, hvilket har betydet at, meget af dagen har foregået indenfor. Her blev vi undervist i artkendskab og hvordan man kan kende forskel mellem rørsangere, kærsangere og buskrørsangere, eller som de bliver kaldt på engelsk ”Little brown jobs”.  Undervisningen er et vigtigt led i at kunne artsbestemme de forskellige sangere fra hinanden i felten. Derudover fik vi undervisning i kendskab i ”rare to catch”, men som potentielt set godt kunne komme på besøg heroppe i Skagen i efteråret, og som kan minde meget om de mere almindelige

En anden sjældenhed vi lærte til, er Blyth’s Reed Warbler (Blyth’s rørsanger)  – et godt kendetegn til denne fugl er, at den har "bananpositur".

På grund af regnen var dagens ringmærkningstur aflyst, men Viktoria tog alligevel en gruppe af tyskere med rundt i fyrhaven for at fortælle om ringmærkning og fuglene. Det er altid godt med en guide der kan tale tysk! En regnfuld dag betød også at der ingen ringmærkning var på programmet, hvilket betød at der var tid til morgenforberedelser inden undervisningen, hvilket Amelie gjorde. Lisa tog afsted kort tid efter undervisningen, for at lave noget feltarbejde i forbindelse med hendes studie omkring splitternerne.

En stille dag, betød også en gåtur for mange af os – der er intet som at blive blæst godt igennem.

I morgen står dagen på ringmærkning, hvis vejret tillader os det!

People: Amandine Doré, Viktoria Mader, Lisa Vergin, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Kirsten, Kristina Sønderkjær

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

Yesterday it was Amandines 24^th birthday, so Viktoria prepared a delicious dinner and a birthday cake for her. Pernille and her Kids and Wafa and her nieces came as guests for the evening meeting and after that we celebrated with a fun Danish birthday song, some champagne and a nice “sundowner” on top of the Lighthouse.

Today Lisa, Amandine, Laila and I got up early to do migration counts at Grenen. We counted Sandwich Terns (Splitterne), Common Terns (Fjrdterne), Arctic Terns (Havterne), Common Ringed Plovers (Stor Præstekrave), Sanderlings (Sandløber), Gulls and some Great Skuas (Storkjove). We even saw some seals! After some time Jørgen joined us with his dog Igor.

In the meantime Viktoria and Simon checked and entered some ringing data to the database. In the afternoon Simon, Lisa and Amandine guided the ringing tour at the Bird Observatory. Viktoria and I went to Jerup Strand for counting Sandwich Terns for Lisa’s master’s thesis. Unfortunately, we didn’t observe many Sandwich Terns (Splitterne), but we saw many waders, like and Common Ringed Plovers (Stor Præstekrave), Northern Lapwings (Vibe), Dunlins (Almindelig Ryle), Whimbrels (Småspove) and a Curlew (Storspove). We also found a dead Gull at the beach.

People: Amandine Doré, Viktoria Mader, Lisa Vergin, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Kirsten, Kristina Sønderkjær, Pernille Roed, Laila Neerman, Jørgen Kabel and Igor

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området

Today, Amelie, Lisa, Victoria and me went out at the «World of the End 3», close to Grenen tip, to do some migration counts with Knud. Since Amelie, Victoria and myself are still inexprienced doing migration countings, especially at sea, we enjoy going out with Knud, who is a really good teacher !

We saw some Great Skuas (Storkjove) of which one was resting on the beach. It was a very nice sighting, since we usually see them from very far away...

There were a lots of Gannets (Sule), Knud counted almost 400 of them ! The majority were young birds, since most of them were quite darks. Gannets take long time to adcquire a full adult plumage. They remain more or less grey until their 4th calendar year, after which they are usually completely white.

There were also some Kittiwakes (Ride ) roosting on the beach, alongside Common terns (Fjordterne) and some Artic Terns (Havterne ) and  acouple of Sandwich terns (Splitterne).  We counted also a lot of Red-throated diver (Rødstrubet lom ) and some Sanderling (Sandløber).

After 4 hours of counting, we all came back home and had some breakfast there, before going on with our day. Kristina, who had already visited us ealier in July, arrived today. She is doing an internship here at the observatory, in the context of her studies. She will work here until December.



Today was as well the «Open Freezer Day» at the lighthouse. At 2pm, Simon presented some of the frozen birds to the public, which attracted a lot of curious people. Kids are especially interested by the dead birds !

Amelie and me later went to survey the Cormorant colony (Skarv). All the chicks are fledged now, and the cormorants have started leaving the area.

It was probably the last time we will survey the cormorant colony this year !

People : Amandine Doré, Viktoria Mader, Lisa Vergin, Simon S. Christiansen, Amelie Zeller, Kirsten, Kristina Sønderkjær

Klik her for at se dagens observationer indtastet i Dofbasen af observatører i området