We did not go ringing again this morning since it was still very windy, however, instead we went again to count the terns and look for ringed Sandwich terns (splitterne). It was a very windy, however, also very beautiful morning. The storm from last night had moved quite a lot of sand so the beach looked very different from what we were used to and the water is still very high. Compared to yesterday there were almost no gulls which made it easier to get closer to the terns and also find some shorebirds around.

The black tern (sortterne) I saw last night was not seen again, however, we saw 3 dunlins (almindelig ryle) and 1 bar-tailed godwit (lille kobbersneppe).

We also counted 40 sandwich terns and for the first time there were 2 juveniles from this year in the flock as well. Next to that again around 20 common terns. And that was only the roosting birds: many more were out fishing!

We saw some ringed terns but unfortunately no color rings and we could not get close enough to read the metal rings. We will try again tomorrow.

In the afternoon Karsten Hansen came to interview Simon about the work of Skagen Fuglestation. We opened the nets in the lighthouse garden despite the strong winds but the birds weren’t moving so until the very end we didn’t catch anything. Just when we thought we would have to disappoint the camera team we had a single whitethroat (tornsanger) in the last net check. For us a common bird, I am sure it made the TV team very happy. And it was a good way to show one of the most important parts of the work we do here.

In the evening we will go out ringing at Kabeltromeln, partly because we miss the ringing, partly because the winds are supposed to continue for a while and this evening is probably the best few hours of the week to catch birds. Also we set up a wader net and since waders are starting to move south now we are hoping to catch something cool there. We will report tomorrow.

Frederik left today for good. Or at least until next year. If the number of reported rarities from Skagen suddenly goes down then you know why. We were very happy to have him both to help with identifying birds in flight and with the Danish names of the birds. Now Amandine and I are alone with Simon until the new volunteers for the autumn arrive. We will do our best to continue the great work on raptor counts that Frederik started.

Talking about raptors: Thom Kongerslev was so nice and sent us his beautiful pictures of the long-legged buzzards (ørnevåge) he saw in the last few days in Skagen. The pictures show that it was two different birds, which is quite interesting for such a rare species.

Ringing at Fyrhaven:

Common Whitethroat – Tornsanger – 1

People: Amandine Doré, Martina Hillbrand, Simon S. Christiansen og Frederik R. Johansen.

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I dag blæste det rigtig meget, så vi kunne desværre ikke ringmærke i dag. 

Amandine, Martina og jeg tog ud for at tælle terner, og jeg besluttede mig for at tælle de rastende måger på stranden, for der var edermageme mange!

Vi talte mindst 4960 rastende måger, men der var hele tiden nogen der fløj, så der har helt sikker været over 5000 rastende måger!!!!!!!

Mågeflokken bestod af:

Sølvmåge - 3722

Hættemåge - 146

Sorthovedet Måge - 1 (2k)

Ride - 3

Stormmåge - 427

Sildemåge - 427

Kaspisk Måge - 1 (måske en mere)

Svartbag - 233 (+en med en blå farvering)

Amandine og Martina talte:

Splitterne - 37

Fjordterne - 2

Rosenstæren var stadig på plads ude ved Grenen-spidsen, og den var lige så fantastisk smuk som den var i går!!!

Jeg tog efterfølgende hjem, hvor Amandine kom 20 min efter. 

Martina tog ud til Kabeltrommelkrattet for at stramme nogen net, og sætte et nyt net op.

Klokken 14.00 ca. tog vi på ringmærkningstur. Det gik fint, selvom vi ikke fangede nogen fugle.

I dag er min sidste dag heroppe på Skagen Fuglestation, og det betyder jo så også at dette er min sidste blog, lige foreløbig. Det har været et fantastisk forår, og på gensyn ;)

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Folk: Amandine Doré, Martina Hillbrand, Simon S. Christiansen og Frederik R. Johansen.

Today, Martina and Frederik went opening the net, while I enjoyed an hour more of extra sleep and then joined them for the first net check at 4:15am.

The morning was very slow, only a few birds were caught in the nets. However, someone spotted a Rosy Starling (Rosenstær) next to the tip of Grenen beach, which is also close to Kabeltromlen where we are ringing. We took turn and went down to the beach between net checks to see this Rosy Starling.  It was flying among a flock of Common Starlings (Stær), and fortunately, we all managed to get a good view of it ! Simon joined the ringing later on and also went to check this Rosy starling.

Looking for the Rosy Starling

Here it is !

The morning became even more exciting as Simon spotted some Black Kites (Sort glente), a White-tailed Eagle (Havørn) and a Golden Eagle (Kongeørn). A lot of raptors were flying around: Red Kites (Rød glente), Common Buzzards (Musvåge), Honey Buzzards (Hvepsevåge), Kestrel (Tårnfalk )….

In the early morning, Frederik also observed a Golden Oriole (Pirol) chasing a Sparrowhawk (Spurvehøg) !

After two net checks without any birds, we decided to close early. On our last net check before closing, we caught a very nice second calendar year male Grey Wagtail (Bjergvipstjert).

Grey Wagtail (Bjergvipstjert)

This morning that had started very slow ended up being very exciting !

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen)

Munk – Blackcap – 3

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat – 2

Tornsanger – Common Whitethroat – 1

Kærsanger – Marsh Warbler – 6

Rørsanger – Reed Warbler – 1

Bjergvipstjert – Grey Wagtail – 1

Bogfinke – Chaffinch -  1

Grå Fluesnapper – Spotted Flycatcher – 1

Gærdesmutte – Wren – 1

Løvsanger – Willow Warbler – 1

Total: 18

People : Martina Hillbrand, Simon S. Christiansen, Frederik R. Johansen and Amandine Doré

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Today Martina and I went ringing at Kabeltromlen. Frederik did not join the ringing as he had been out the whole listening to night birds with Simon.

We had to open the nets one hour later because of the rain. Despite a cloudy weather, we caught quite few birds in the nets, and opened until 10, when it started raining again. After the Blackcap (Munk) wave of last week, today was the Lesser Whitethroat (Gærdesanger) invasion ! We catch new Lesser Whitethroats every day, which is surprising as we would expect them to be all ringed by now since they are resident birds. Some of them have starting moulting their feathers. 

Lesser Withetroat (Gærdesanger) moulting its feathers

We caught a nice juvenile Reed Bunting (Rørspurv), showing the species’ typical dark brown streaked pattern on the wings. Later on, we caught a beautiful adult male.

Juvenile Reed Bunting (Rørspurv) 

Adult male Reed Bunting (Rørspurv) 

We also caught several Lesser whitethroats (Gærdesanger) hatched this year, and our first Common Whitethroat (Tornsanger) hatchling ! We are still waiting for the Blackcaps (Munk) hatchlings to be caught in the nets ! It should happen very soon!

Juvenile Lesser Whitethroat (Gærdesanger)


Juvenile Common Whitethroat (Tornsanger)

After the ringing we went back home and got some sleep to get ready for the Virtual Pride Run Pernille, Martina and myself had enrolled for. We ended up running 6 km, it was nice and fun. 

Tonight, an outdoor dinner was organized at the Grey Lighthouse by the Friends of the Observatory. The weather was unfortunately not very good, and several showers interrupted the event, however everything turned out well.

The dinner was very good and had interesting flavours, using local ingredients such as different algae collected in the sea during the afternoon, as well as rosehips growing around the lighthouse. 

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Gransanger – Chiffchaff - 1

Lille Dompap – Bullfinch – 1

Bogfinke – Chaffinch -  5

Havesanger – Garden Warbler -  1

Tornsanger – Common Whitethroat – 4

Munk – Blackcap – 13

Topmejse – Crested Tit – 3

Kærsanger – Marsh Warbler – 4

Rørsanger – Reed Warbler – 2

Sangdrossel – Song Thrush – 1

Gærdesmutte – Wren – 2

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat – 2

Solsort – Blackbird – 2

Rødhals – Robin - 1

Skovpiber – Tree Pipit – 1

Blåmejse – Blue Tit – 1

Skægmejse – Bearded Tit – 2

Bjergvipstjert – Grey Wagtail – 1

Kernebider – Hawfinch – 1

Lille Gråsisken – Redpoll – 3

Broget Fluesnapper – Pied Flycatcher – 1

Løvsanger – Willow Warbler – 1

Vindrossel  - Redwing - 2

Rørspurv – Reed Bunting -

Total: 39

People : Martina Hillbrand, Frederik R. Johansen, Simon S. Christiansen, Amandine Doré and Pernille Roed.

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Dagen i dag startede ud med at Martina tog ud til Jennes Sø, for at åbne nettene til CES-mærkning. Det gik meget stille under ringmærkningen med meget få fugle.

Imens Martina og jeg mærkede ved Jennes Sø, tog Amandine ud til Skarvsøen, for at tælle og tjekke op på Skarvkolonien. Det så godt ud, og ungerne ser sunde ud.

Klokken 10.30 cyklede vi hjem til fuglestationen. Martina og Amandine gik i seng, og jeg tog ud for at kigge efter en Ørnevåge, som havde været her i går. Det lykkedes ikke....

Isblåfugl

Hertil eftermiddag, tog Martina til Nordstrand for at kigge efter Store Præstekraver (især unger), men det lykkedes desværre ikke for hende. Hun så nogen fiskene Splitterner, som nok samler føde til deres unger.

Senere i aften tager Simon og jeg på natlyt. Vi håber på noget godt (Buskrørsanger mindst ;) ).

Folk: Amandine Doré, Martina Hillbrand og Frederik R. Johansen.

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This morning we went ringing as usual. The night was not quite as long as the night before, so we actually did sleep before getting up at 2.30 again. However, it was a late night nonetheless, quite unexpectedly since we were all really tired  from the long nightjar night. But at dinner Simon informed us that somebody had reported an injured Gannet (Sule) on North Beach. It was ringed and he wanted us to catch it to be able to read the ring and if necessary take the bird to a rehabilitation center.

Amandine and I went with our guests Jesper and Anne went to the beach to catch the poor bird. After a short search we found the bird. We came up with a strategy to catch it but we did not know how mobile the bird was. So at the first try we failed quite badly, since the bird managed to escape into the water between Amandine and me. It swam only for a short time and then came back to the beach, also showing that it must be in rally bad shape. The second time we were better prepared, came from deeper in the water and managed to catch it quickly. Once we had the bird we saw the damage: it had a broken lower mandible. Clearly it couldn’t feed any more. This might have happened when the bird tried to catch a fish that was caught in a fisherman’s net. The bird was full of insects and it was clear that it was not going to survive left on its own so we called wildlife rescue. Unfortunately they could only tell that an adult bird like this with a broken bill could not be fed (and we did experience how vicious it was when we needed two people to hold it), so he advised us to kill the bird to not let it suffer any longer.  Jesper was so kind and do that for us as none of the women wanted to take care of that. We did admire its long, beautiful wings, though. It is such an elegant bird which makes it even harder to see it die this way.

On the plus side: we were able to report the ring to London and hope to hear soon how old this bird was and where it was born. We will keep you updated.

On the brighter side of life we had a nice sunrise again in the morning and opened the nets to a very warm day. Compared to yesterday the ringing was quite slow but nonetheless brought us some very interesting species. The biggest surprise of the day was a nuthatch (spætmejse). Some were seen to pass through on migration – probably first-year birds on juvenile dispersal and one of them ended up in our nets. We do not normally catch this species, so we were very excited about it.

Another really nice bird was the water rail (vandrikse). We know that the species was nesting close to our nets because we heard them every morning. We also set out traps for many days specifically to catch the rails, however, it never succeeded. All the water rails we caught were caught in the nets. Today we caught a juvenile which, obviously, was already able to fly very well. The weird sounds that they make are misleading: they are actually very pretty birds.

For the rest we did not catch anything special, just the local and regional breeding birds. We are getting more and more juvenile birds in the nests now, so it is really nice for us to see every day a new species has fledged. Today we caught a juvenile chiffchaff (gransanger) and a blue tit (blåmejse) – next to the already known lesser whitehtroats (gærdesanger) and crested tits (topmejse).

In the afternoon we set up the nets at Jennes Sø so that we can do the CES ringing there tomorrow.

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Gransanger – Chiffchaff - 2

Munk – Blackcap – 5

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat – 7

Bogfinke – Chaffinch -  1

Vandrikse – Water Rail – 1

Blåmejse – Blue Tit – 1

Spætmejse – European Nuthatch – 1

Rørsanger – Reed Warbler – 1

Tornsanger – Common Whitethroat – 2

Sangdrossel – Song Thrush – 1

Topmejse – Crested Tit – 4

Total: 25

People : Martina Hillbrand, Simon S. Christiansen, Frederik R. Johansen, Amandine Doré, Jesper and Anne Sandfeld

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Vores dag i dag startede faktisk allerede i går aftes. Vi skulle nemlig ud for at fange Natravne med Lars Bo! Vi drog afsted mod Sandmilen klokken 21.30 i går aftes, for at sætte nettene op. Vi havde været ude en gang før (for 2 uger siden), hvor vi intet fangede, så forventningerne var lidt forskellige :)

Men klokken 00.15 røg der en Natravn i nettet!!!!! Holy moly den var bare fed!

Klokken 02.00 havde Martina kørt med Laila hjem, så Martina kunne sætte nettene op ved Kabeltrommelkrattet.

Vi var faktisk så heldige, at vi fangede hele 5 Natravne i alt!!

Klokken 04.20 havde vi pakket det hele sammen og tog tilbage mod stationen.

Vi takker Lars Bo rigtig mange gange for hjælpen.

Vores lyslokker havde givet en stor gevinst, nemlig en Lille Vinsværmer!! Det er bare en fed sværmer!

Derefter tog Amandine ud til Martina for at hjælpe i mærkningen, og jeg gik i seng.

Da jeg stod op ved 10-tiden, skete der noget fantastisk. Rolf Christensen melder en Korttået Lærke ud fra Grenen. En Korttået Lærke er en sjælden lærke-art, som kommer fra sydeuropa og længere østpå.

Den var altså bare virkelig fed!

Amandine og Martina fik sovet nogen par timer efter den lange nat.

Her til eftermiddag har vi lavet lidt praktisk arbejde.

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Folk: Amandine Doré, Martina Hillbrand, Simon S. Christiansen, Lars Bo Jacobsen og Laila Neerman.

This morning, Martina and me went out ringing at Kabeltromlen. The weather was very nice, warm and sunny, as it should be in summer ! We were unsure about how good the day will be for catching birds but we ended up having some nice species in the nets. We caught a female Bullfinch (Dompap Lille) as well as one juvenile and one adult male Reed Bunting (Rørspurv).

A nice male Reed Bunting (Rørspurv)

And on our last round, we were lucky and caught a juvenile Grey Wagtail (Bjergvipstjert) !

Grey Wagtail (Bjergvipstjert)

We also got juveniles Common Whitethroat (Tornsanger), Great tit (Musvit), Crested tit (Topmejse). Soon we should see some Blackcaps’ (Munk) hatchlings in the nets !

While Martina and I were doing the net checks, Simon and Frederik showed to Pernille’s class how the ringing works via the phone. Frederik ringed a Chiffchaff (Gransanger) in front of the pupils which seemed to be very interested !

Chiffchaff (Gransanger)

In the afternoon, we set up a trap for moth that we will try overnight. We’re looking forward to see what we catch there tomorrow.

This evening, we are going out trying to catch nightjars with Lars Bo. This should be an exciting night outdoors ! More on this tomorrow in the blog!

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Great tit – Musvit – 1
Lesser whitethroat – Gærdesanger – 10
Wren – Gærdesmutte – 1
Marsh warbler – Kærsanger – 2
Reed warbler – Rørsanger – 3
Crested tit – Topmejse – 2
Grey wagtail – Bjergvipstjert – 1
Common whitethroat – Tornsanger – 4
Blackap – Munk – 6
Bullfinch - Dompap, Lille (europaea) – 1
Reed bunting - Rørspurv – 2
Chiffchaff – Gransanger – 4

Total: 38

People : Martina Hillbrand, Amandine Doré, Simon S. Christiansen, Frederik R. Johansen, Pernille Roed

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I dag blæste det for meget til ringmærkning ved Kabeltromlen, så i dag sov vi længe, og fokuserede på en masse praktisk arbejde.

Men inden vi kommer til det, så vil jeg lige starte med i går aftes. For i går aftes tog vi ned til en gård syd for Skagen, for at ringmærke Slørugler!

Vi var så heldige og ringmærke hele 5 Slørugle unger! Det var fedt, vi fik også en fed og spændende rundtur rundt omkring ude på engene. 

I morges tog jeg ud til Skarvkolonien. Det så godt ud for ungerne, de var blevet store og sunde. 

Simon var så heldig at se Steppeørn lige over huset. Det er cool!

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Folk: Simon S. Christiansen, Amandine Doré, Martina Hillbrand og Frederik R. Johansen

The last of the rain fronts passed through Skagen this morning. We were not sure originally if there would be time to open the nets between sunrise and the rain. Also we had no idea if there would be migrating birds trapped between the fronts or not. By now, I have gotten used to check the rain radar as the first thing I do after my alarm goes off. It promised at least two dry hours to catch birds so we went to open the nets at the usual time (3:15). By the way, as of today the days get shorter and sun rises later which means that we can sleep longer. For now, around 40 seconds per day…

We did catch birds, however, mainly local breeding birds, many of which already had a ring too. Catching ringed birds is always nice because that way you can see that the bird is still in the area, still alive, and we can follow the development of the brood patch when it is incubating eggs and then the moult (like in the willow warbler/løvsanger below).

If you catch a bird that you ringed in a different year, of course, it is still more interesting as then you can also study things like site fidelity and survival. Even though we again caught many blackcaps (munk) we haver very few recaptures of those. The recaptures are mainly lesser whitethroat (gærdesanger) and common whitethroat (tornsanger). This might suggest that the blackcaps are not spending a lot of time in this area but only move through probably foraging. This would also explain why we catch so large numbers of blackbirds which is definitely more than the number of territories the small area where we have set up nets can provide.

We had two very interesting birds in the net today as well: redwings (vindrossel). They are regularly caught here on migration in early spring and later in the fall, however, at this time of the year it is unusual to catch them here as they do not breed in the close surroundings. It is even more surprising then that we caught not only one but two of these. Maybe they do breed in the near surroundings after all? Or they lost their nest and decided to give up on the breeding for this year and explore the north of Denmark some more.

A little later than predicted the rain came and we had to close the nets much earlier than we normally would. This meant we had the chance to catch up on some sleep which was very welcome. Well rested and with sunshine after the rain we went out in the afternoon to the north beach to see if maybe the weather has brought us any rare birds. We could not find rare birds, however, we found another nest of a ringed plover and we saw several more plovers without chicks which are probably still incubating as well. Therefore we still have to advise visitors to the beach to be careful and watch your step. As you can tell, the eggs are really hard to spot!

Also on the beach are large numbers of gulls (lesser black-backed (sildemåge), greater black-backed (svartbag), and herring gull (sølvmåge)) and some sandwich terns (splitterne).

In the evening we have been invited by Lars Bo to help him with the ringing of barn owl chicks. Since we expect to get home late we will share the pictures in tomorrow’s blog. Also in the evening Frederik came back, so now we are back in full strength and ready for lots more birds. Raptor migration should pick up again from tomorrow noon when the wind slows down.

Ringmærkning (Kabeltromlen):

Havesanger – Garden Warbler -  1

Munk – Blackcap – 8

Løvsanger – Willow Warbler – 1

Gærdesanger – Lesser Whitethroat – 2

Bogfinke – Chaffinch -  1

Vindrossel  - Redwing - 2

Total: 15

People : Martina Hillbrand, Simon S. Christiansen, and Amandine Doré

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