Dante and Hebe were up and out at Grenen this morning, Dante with Rolf on Worlds End and Hebe got to meet and learn from Knud on Worlds End 2. I was up intending to do some ringing, but the wind was not conducive. So I did an hour and half’s migration watching from the ringing lab. After this I headed back inside (grudgingly as it was a good morning) to answer some emails and to put together a Facebook post about our recent redpoll recoveries. I also managed to get some photos on the photo archive before the other two came back. The ladies in the apartment were leaving today also so it was nice to be on hand to see them off.

Hebe came back first because she needed to move into our room as were having some guests coming today. Dante arrived a bit later and got on with entering DofBasen. Hebe and I put together her diary for the previous day and then went down to the Newsroom in the lighthouse to answer any questions the visitors might have about the observatory or bird migration as a whole.

During this time the Observatory Council meeting was taking place upstairs with representatives from the ringing union, Blavand and Gedser bird observatories and Mark from DOF taking part. Simon was cloistered in this meeting all afternoon. When it was finished we all sat down to dinner in the apartment, joined by Morten Christensen and Knud and Inger Pedersen. The dinner was provided by Christel and was absolutely superb. It was an enjoyable evening and the stories (and wine!) flowed well. I took an evening meeting after this with the remaining guests before heading out for a night catching session in the rain with Hans and Henning. We got soaked and didn’t see a bird but it was a good effort!

People: Simon Sigurd Christiansen, Hebe Denning, Dante Shepherd, Morten Christensen, Eva Noer Kondrup, Mette Mourits, Knud Pedersen, Inger Pedersen, Tage Legaard, John Frikke, Henning Ettrup, Hans Lind, Mark Desholm

Skål! 

Danish Bird Observatory royalty, from left, Johe Frikke, Hans Lind and Henning Ettrup

The day began at 5:45 AM, with Dante and myself planning to head over to Grenen to do migration count, Peter planning to do some ringing and Simon still away. On our way out of the Observatory though, Dante noticed a group of BEAUTIFUL Halemejse in the garden bushes!! Of course we were very excited and as was Peter who hurried down to open the nets… just in time as all 13 Halemejse flew straight into them (as well as a gulspurv a little later!). After some fiddly extractions, the birds were rung by Peter and Dante and we were joined our guests, the lovely Heidi, Eva and Mette who were able to watch for a while before Heidi, headed off to the train station. Eva was even lucky enough to have one land on her head!

So, after this excitement, Dante and I headed over to Lands End Two, where we met Rolf who told us lots of interesting things about the birds and about finding amber on the beach! After a good morning of observing, and having a look at a gorgeous grey seal pup resting on the beach, we headed back to find Peter, who had spent the rest of the morning doing some observation himself, had had a visit from Jørgen Kabel and Michael Anker (who told him about some natugle near by!) and went looking for a sumpmejse, where he saw a storspove fly over.

After saying goodbye to Heidi and looking at the Halemejse, Eva, who writes music for piano, spent the rest of day composing, while Mette went out for a walk and later on into town for some supplies.

After a bit of lunch, I headed out to buy supplies for dinner (my turn to cook uh oh!) and Peter and Dante headed down to the visitor centre to talk to the visitors. The three of us then returned to the dreaded net!! And spent some hours fixing away.

Dinner was a questionable spanish omelette and beetroot salad thing which the boys were very polite about! While Mette and Eva made a traditional Danish meal for their dinner: Rye bread soaked in sweet beer, with sugar, cinnamon and cream!! Sounds pretty epic!

All in all, another utterly brilliant day.

People: Dante Shepherd, Peter Denyer, Simon S. Christiansen, Hebe Denny, Heidi Jørgensen, Mette Mourits, Eva Noer Kondrup

Birds Ringed

Halemejse - 13

Gulspurv - 1

Halemejse!

As you can guess, I was out at Grenen for first light. Highlights were 77 Buzzard/Musvåge, 12 Woodlark/Hedelærke, a Knot/Islandsk Ryle and a Glaucous Gull/Gråmåge which showed well on the beach. Whilst I was out Peter and Hebe had the nets open but only caught one bird to their disappointment, a Yellowhammer/Gulspurv. They then headed off to town to do some shopping and on the way stopped to look for raptors on Batterivej and had some Buzzards/Musvåge along with a Goshawk/Duehøg which is getting rarer and rare up here these days. Simon headed home to Aalborg for a couple of days at lunchtime.

In the afternoon we again entered dofbasen and ringing records and completed other necessary computer work. There was so much left from yesterdays meal we had that again! 

Birds ringed at Fyrhaven:

Gulspurv - 1

People: Dante Shepherd, Peter Denyer, Simon S. Christiansen, Hebe Denny, Heidi Jørgensen, Mette Mourits, Eva Noer Kondrup

The wind was still strong today but Dante and Hebe went out to Grenen to do some migration watching. There Hebe was introduced to one of the locals. They didn’t see much, but Hebe was very pleased with watching migrating whooper swans (sangsvane) and the divers. I got up a little later and for my sins spent over two hours working on a very difficult net. The others were back from Grenen before I called it a morning and came down. I then gave Hebe a hand getting her diary post on the website. Mette was sick this morning so it was just Heidi and Eva making the morning pilgrimage to Grenen to watch the sun rise. Later on they went into town to do some shopping and got some tasty beer.

About midday Dante and I decided to show Hebe the weekly cleaning rota. With three volunteers it was pleasantly swift. After this we worked on a Facebook video for the observatory, so that Dante and Hebe can make them themselves in the future. At 2pm we started what will be a daily process of heading down to the news room to answer questions from visitors. Today was mainly working out what we’ll bring with us and how to use the big tv screen!

Simon cooked an amazing dinner for us all, with enough leftovers for us to use for dinner tomorrow, and the ladies brought a pencil sharpener for the bird observatory which is far superior to the one we have! With some delicious beer they’d brought in town it was like little midweek party! Later on Dante took Hebe through some of the shared folders on the computer and I downloaded some tree sparrow (skorvspurv) calls on the iPod for ringing tomorrow.

People: Dante Shepherd, Peter Denyer, Simon S. Christiansen, Hebe Denny, Heidi Jørgensen, Mette Mourits, Eva Noer Kondrup

Our evening meals are currently spent in the luxury of the apartment.

And our lovely present from the ladies! 

After arriving at Skagen for the first time, late monday evening, (such a beautiful clear night!) My first morning here began with a real epic of a sunrise.

While I slept off the journey of the day before, Dante had left the obs and headed over to Grenen, where he met Knud and spent the morning watching for migrating birds. It was a fairly quiet morning for him, but lots of migrating corvids. Heidi, Mette and Eva were also out and about and stopped lots of sanderlings! As well as five whooper swans flying over and ringed plovers. Simon and Peter spent the morning ringing, where I joined them there eventually just in time to see them ring a couple of stor grasisken and be savaged by a feisty wee musvit!

Peter and I then headed back inside, where he showed me how the ringing data is uploaded to the computer as well how to use DOF. We spent some time uploading the mornings catchings and tasting Christel's INCREDIBLE Romkugler (oh my goodness!!) Whilst Simon had some Skype meetings and Dante arrived in from his cold mornings adventure.

After this I headed out to explore around the shore for the first time! I was so excited to see so many gannets, eider, ringed plover, sanderling etc and snow bunting which are so Familiar from my home in the cairngorm mountains! Meanwhile, Simon went in to town for some supplies including bread to be used as a lure for the Glaucous gull at Skagen Harbour!

On returning back to the obs after a cold and windy wander, Simon, Peter, Dante, Heidi and I squeezed into Simons car with a big net, lots of bread and some cardboard boxes, and headed to Skagen Harbour. There we were met by many many gulls and lots of strange looks from the Harbour men as Dante and simon attempted to bait the Glaucous gull into their net. The gull did appear, (my first time seeing a Glaucous gull! Much excitement!) but was not fooled by the bready net and kept her distance. We left defeated for now, and headed back to the warm and dry where Peter, Dante and I spent some time fixing a very battered mist net and Simon updated the website.

The day ended with an incredible meal cooked by Heidi, Mette and Eva. ( Thank you so much! )

People: Dante Shepherd, Peter Denyer, Simon S. Christiansen, Hebe Denny, Heidi Jørgensen, Mette Mourits, Eva Noer Kondrup

Birds ringed at Fyrhaven:

Musvit - 2

Stor gråsisken - 32

Grønirisk - 1

Dante and I fixing a very battered net.

Trying to lure in the gråmåge in the harbour

As usual I headed out to Grenen at sunrise with Knud for a migration watch. By far the highlight of a glorious sunny (windless!) day was a flock of 10 Shags. Shags are rare in Denmark and to find such a large flock was really exciting. 

Whilst I was out at the tip Peter and Simon had the garden nets open and caught 20 birds including a Redpoll initially ringed in Sweden. Heidi, Mette and Eva, who had been out early to see the sunrise at Grenen before, observed the ringing and really enjoyed watching the birds being handled. 

In the afternoon Peter and I took our bikes out to do some obervations in the wider Skagen area. I again headed to the harbour and was pleased to find two Glaucous Gulls where there had been one the day before. Peter went to the Cormorant colony to find several Cormorants displaying and showing signs of breeding, the first this spring. Simon had an interview with someone who is making a podcast about the people of Skagen. 

In the evening news came through of two Tawny Owl calling in the town. With only  about 10 prior records in the Skagen area Tawny Owl is a Skagen mega! Simon was quickly on the scene for a local tick. Hebe arrived late in the evening and after a quick run through of the basics we all went to bed.

Ringing (Fyrhaven):

Blackbird, 1 Great Tit 1, Mealy Redpoll 18

People: Dante Shepherd, Peter Denyer, Simon S. Christiansen, Hebe Denny, Heidi Jørgensen, Mette Mourits, Eva Noer Kondrup

After the bad weather of the last couple of days the forecast looked good enough for Dante to head up to Grenen and me to head into the garden and try some ringing. Dante saw a lot including a couple of twite (perhaps the same birds from last year.) I, however, did not catch any birds, but I managed to get some observations in, including my first red kites of the year, a couple of hundred jackdaws and a a couple of buzzards.

So inspired was I by this that I headed to the harbour to look for the glaucous gull. A croissant and a pizza roll later I had the best views and photos I’ve ever had of the species. I also counted 300 eider in the harbour too.

When I returned, Simon was back from Aalborg and had picked up our new guests for the week, Heidi, Mette and Eva. After this he ran through with us our plans for the rest of the day and then went home for the evening. Dante and I headed out for more obs as the weather was very good. I headed to Grenen Dante headed to North Strand and walked around the coast. I didn’t see much of interest but there were a lot more birds moving than before the storm, so that bodes well for the next few days. Dante had more luck and he found a flock of ten long tailed tits on the walk from the Cormorant lake back to the Observatory. The ladies had settled in and were cooking their own dinner this evening, though they intend to join us later in the week.

After dinner, Dante and I went out for some flashlighting, and whilst we didn’t even see any birds, we did see a mustelid species, probably a polecat though I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a marten. It was a beautiful clear night and not for the first time I curse the fact that the iPhone can’t take pictures of the night sky. Dante is planning to head up to Grenen in the morning, I’m planning to ring and the ladies are planning to watch the sun rise over Grenen, so it was early . . ish . .to bed tonight.

Rød glente past the Observatory this morning 

The gråmåge was showing ridiculously well in the harbour. 

I didn’t leave the observatory once yesterday as the weather was so terrible (30+ mph winds and rain)!  Peter and I got a lot of stuff done which had been building up over the last couple of months such as finishing the photo archive, fixing a load of nets and other computer work. In the afternoon Peter had a cup of tea with Flemming in the news room and discussed upcoming social tasks. That was it for the day really, a lot of stuff done but not much to write about! 

People: Dante Shepherd, Peter Denyer

Another rainy day saw us doing some inside jobs, though Dante drew the short straw and had to cycle into town for some shopping, checking out the harbour whilst he was there but not having any luck with the two glaucous gulls reported there. I spent a couple of hours working on the photo archive and managed to shift everything from 2018 so we’re ready to start inputting 2019 photos as of tomorrow.

After lunch I got to work on some more nets, getting two more done and a third underway. We’re well on the way to having all the nets repaired by next week, though some of the more damaged ones will require quite a lot of time. The supposed ‘storm’ was really just a combination of relatively high winds and a bit of drizzle, quite an anticlimax after what we’d been led to believe was coming.

Dinner was mostly leftovers from the week and afterward we decided to try some flashlighting on the beach as the ‘bad‘ weather might bring some birds in to shore. It was very dark and the beach had all but disappeared in some places making walking up there a little tricky. We did see some birds but didn’t catch any, and a few mammals. We took a nice stroll back via Ellekrattet and saw a short eared owl on the way which was unexpected on such a windy night.

People: Dante Shepherd, Peter Denyer

One of the mammals we saw during the flashlighting, a juvenile grey seal. 

With heavy rain and strong winds forecast ringing and migration watching was called off. At 9:30 Rita came over to clean the observatory (thanks again!) and to show Peter and I how to clean the toilet properly. Afterwards, I did some picture archiving and net fixing and Peter went to clean the birders club. As we were doing this Charlotte said goodbye as she was leaving back for Copenhagen, we hope you enjoyed your visit! 

In the afternoon Peter headed off to Frederikshavn to watch a movie and I went into town to buy dinner. On my way back I decided it would be worthwhile to check the harbour for any interesting gulls. I was very pleased to find a juvenile Glaucous Gull. It was very approachable and seemed to have a taste for the pastry I was throwing out for it. Definitely the best cinnamon roll I have ever bought! 

People: Dante Shepherd, Peter Denyer, Simon S. Christiansen, Charlotte Mathiassen