Today Simon and I attempted to do some ringing, we opened all three nets and flipped the trap and put some redpoll calls on. An hour and a half later I closed the nets after catching . . no birds! It was very strange, but it gave me the opportunity to to go and do some observations. So back down the road I went to look for the marsh tit. Once again I drew a blank, so I think it must have left. I had a pleasant morning though and went home via Batteriscoe where I found a bullfinch, for my Danish year list. Whilst I was out Dante was at North Strand with Knud, they didn’t see much but it was all good migration monitoring. Charlotte walked together shops along the beach to get us some much needed staples. She then worked on the results of her interviews here with all the volunteers and staff. Simon was overloaded with bookings for the apartment, planning a business trip for April and trying to get some more bedding for the season.

When I returned from the field, I had a quick lunch, and went straight upstairs to get on with net fixing, Dante joined me later and we worked on a particularly difficult net for a couple of hours. From there I got straight on with cooking the dinner (my usual, a chilli) cleaning the kitchen, going through yesterday’s ringing records for mistakes, entering DofBasen before finally sitting down at 8pm. We have a rainy day tomorrow according to the forecast so the evening meeting was mostly planning out tasks we could do inside tomorrow. Today was Charlottes last day, so we asked her thoughts on her experiences and take always from her first visit to Skagen.

The path at Batteriscoe, with the flycatcher tree on the right.

Today I had meetings with various people from around the lighthouse, Lene from the nature conservancy, Christel from the café and an interview with Dante about being a volunteer. From these meetings I gathered useful information to be used in future questionnaires/interviews with people in and around the lighthouse.

During the morning Peter and Dante were busy observing birds, Peter also checking out the cormorant lake to see if any cormorants are thinking about breeding yet. He then went on to look for the marsh tit that had been reported in the town by Anders Bojesen and a few others over the last month. Dante went out to Grenen to do four hours of migration monitoring off Worlds End.

They both entered their DOFBasen records on return, and had a quick nap before undertaking other tasks, including net repair and ringing data entry.

Simon was mostly involved in admin tasks and preparation for an upcoming trip, all of which he assures us, would be ‘boring’ to go into detail on! He also had a meeting with Lene and Christel during the morning.

For dinner I made a nice vegetarian Dahl and butternut squash, bean and mushroom curry, which was well received by all. We planned our activities for the next day, bearing the poor weather forecast in mind.

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

Work in progress on net repair

I was the first one up in the morning and after a bowl of yogurt made my way out to Grenen for a migration watch with Knud. There were decent numbers of birds, namely seabirds and wildfowl, moving in the first couple of hours of light but by 4 hours most of the visible migration had dried up. Highlights from the 4 hour watch included 8 Taiga Bean Geese which headed straight for Sweden and a really impressive flock of 27 Raven which turned back. Peter decided to watch for raptors from the fuglestation garden for an hour before lunchtime after he had finished some computer work and had a nice flock of 7 Common Buzzard, a Rough-legged Buzzard, 2 Sparrowhawk and a Kestrel.

In the afternoon whilst I was doing some DOFbasen Charlotte interviewed Peter for a questionnaire about birders she is making and Simon went into town to buy some ingredients for the quiches I was going to cook in the evening. Whilst the quiches were in the oven Knud came over and showed Peter and I the ins and outs of DOFbasen so that we could input our data properly.

 Apparently the quiches were good!

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

A vegetarian and a bacon quiche I made, which went down very well! 

Knud, Peter and I goign through DOFbasen data entry

The garden was pretty empty today so I put the redpoll tape out and turned the trap over. The wind was too strong to have a net open. Whilst I was waiting for the first round I wrote the diary post for the previous day. I managed to catch a redpoll in the trap, which was processed and then later, just before Lene’s Fastelavn event I got a great tit. At about 11am a few people gathered in the courtyard for a ‘feeding the birds’ event, where I showed them what food we use to attract the birds, and how we spread it out (it’s not just willy nilly despite how it seems). The kids also got a chance to spread some food too. I then showed them the ringing process with the great tit that I’d caught, and this really caught the kids attention. They went so far as to name the bird ‘Maximilian’ the musvit!

Dante went back down to the harbour and also did some shopping. Whilst he was at the harbour he managed to record the ring numbers of 3 great black backed gulls. During this time I was working on the photo archive and looking through some other admin tasks before biking over to Jennes Sø and back. We both entered some DOF records in the evening and Dante reported the ring numbers of the gulls he’d seen in the harbour.

Simon returned this evening picked up Charlotte Mathiassen who will be doing some work for DOF whilst she’s here. I worked on some emails and we planned out the coming week to a degree now there’s more than one person at the Observatory!

Birds ringed

Musvit - 1

Stor Gråsisken - 1 

The musvit, ’Maximillian‘ was a big hit with the kids today. 

Bizarrely, even though its only March, Lene found this large moth caterpillar on the heath. 

We had a new bird in the garden today, nothing exciting but a blackbird gives me hope for some other birds than redpoll in the lab soon. Today’s the day of the presentation, and I still had a few last minute tweaks to make to it.

Dante arrived at lunchtime, and we had a nice session with Knud Pederson about upcoming activities and some of the stuff I’ve been doing since I’ve been here, including an impromptu demonstration of how to repair nets.

The presentation started at 3, with 16 nature interpreters from a variety of countries, including Albania, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Scotland and England present, along with several Danes. It went very well, there was a lot of interaction between us all, many questions asked, and an impromptu tour of the ringing lab afterward for those who are interested. It’s a shame I didn’t get a chance to spend more time with them as there were many conversations started that couldn’t be finished due to time constraints. As they left they presented the observatory with a very nice bottle of wine for the talk, which was gleefully received! Whilst I was giving the talk, Dante was refamiliarising himself with the local area, and even finding a glaucous gull (gråmåge) down in the harbour for his efforts.

After there was a lot of food left from dinner last night, Anders invited Dante and I to join him and Morten for dinner this evening. The wine from the Nature guides was well timed as it was a good accompaniment to a delicious lasagne. This was followed by a few drinks and chatting long into the night as the weather doesn’t look good for ringing or observing tomorrow morning.

The presentation went very well thanks, in part, to the extensive photo archive from which I took the pictures.

Today started particularly slowly, as there was some computer work I needed to to work on, some emails about birding in Skagen that needed a reply, and the presentation for Saturday needed to be worked on and timed. Also there was various admin tasks that I needed to perform too, which aren’t worth noting here. . Earlier in the morning Lene and I did see a family of five whooper swans (sangsvane) fly past the observatory. I put the updated version of the introductory video in the birders club also.

With Dante arriving tomorrow and Charlotte the day after, I decided I needed to do some shopping for basic foods so we have enough to get by, and to that end I headed to the supermarket midday.

It was a less birdy day than I’ve had for a while, though there were still plenty of redpoll in the garden, with great tit and yellowhammer joining them. The wind was too strong to put nets up though. I had a brief break in the café with Flemming during some down time, but he got quickly called away by some visitors.

I’d been invited out to dinner by Anders Bojesen and Morten Christensen so I set off on the bike about 6.30pm. A great time was had, delicious food, great company and lots of talk about the birding we had been doing, or that was coming up. It was really good to see them both again and a great way to end the week. It was a cold and dark bike ride home though!

The redpolls (gråsisken) are still present in numbers today. 

I put the tapes out to attract redwing (vindrossel) and opened the nets early morning. I didn’t catch any redwing, though as usual I had a surplus of redpolls. In amongst the many flammea redpolls I did catch one cabaret, so that was a nice change. I’ve now ringed around 70/80 redpolls this year and it’s getting easier to age and sex them, and the species differences are becoming more apparent the more I familiarise myself with a group that I haven’t ringed in numbers since April last year.

Throughout the time I was ringing there were plenty of jackdaw (allike) moving past the observatory, along with a few skylark (sanglærke). Having not had a great couple of nights sleep for various reasons, I had a brief nap after I closed nets, before starting on some net repair. I managed to get three nets done, bringing my total for nets fixed to 10 so far, with the same amount to go. It’s a good skill to have, though I am by no means adept at the process, with my large fingers.

The wind dropped by late afternoon so I took my daily bike ride up to Grenen. Not as productive as previous days, but a lovely evening to be out on the ridge there. Still looking forward to the time the bitterns move back in and I get to watch them travel from site to site, and days when you can’t move for birds of prey there! When I returned to the observatory I finished off the updated version of the birders club video. It’s still not as perfect as I want, but it’s hands down better than before.

Birds ringed

Stor gråsisken -31

Lille gråsisken - 1

Some variety among the flammea redpolls (stor gråsisken) this cabaret (lille gråsisken)

The carrion crow (sortkråge) is hanging out a lot at the observatory currently. 

It was a windy and slightly sleepless night, the lighthouse building makes the wind seem far more violent than it is. Despite that I was up and at Grenen by 7 and shortly joined by Knud. We had a very pleasant mornings birding, with a lot of movement, with whooper swans migrating, jackdaws attempting to, plenty of seaduck moving through, a group of 18 snow buntings feeding in front of us on the beach. A lone pink footed goose was heard only. Saw my first ravens and rook of the season also. We were joined later on by Jørgen Kable, who spotted a group of four buzzards attempting to migrate but chickening out before they reached the tip.

It was a pain to wrench myself back after three hours but it was cleaning day and we have new volunteers coming in at the weekend. The cleaning takes a while when it’s just one of you! The birds were still very active in the garden, but the wind had picked up so I couldn’t really open the nets. After seeing the activity on the beach today however I decide to head out tonight for some flashlighting. Before I went out I spent some time fixing a net, however it’s one of the trickier ones and I don’t finish it before dinner. The board came to the Observatory for a meeting in the birders club, but I missed them as I went out for a fruitless hour flashlighting in the wind. However it’s given me a good feel for what birds are present and what conditions may not be the best for going out in! Hey ho, I’ll be opening the nets tomorrow if the wind is as low as the forecast suggests.

One flock of several hundred jackdaws that attempted crossing at Grenen today. 

Flemming and I set off about 10.00 this morning to the harbour to find the diver. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, we couldn’t find it again and had to return. Flemming contacted the wildlife rescue people, so at least the appropriate authorities know. We’ll have another try if it turns up again.

On the way back the garden was full of redpolls, and amongst them was my first Danish tree sparrow for the year. I had other things to do today, including preparing another slideshow so I couldn’t take the time to wade through redpoll recaptures to process a tree sparrow. Perhaps another day. I continue doing computer work, as the presentation and the previous days diary took me a while.

I managed to head out to Grenen for the late afternoon, and despite seeming quiet, it was very active, with four stock dove, four shelduck, a crane, reed bunting and various other species I hadn’t caught up with yet this season. The fieldfare were putting on a nice display, I counted at least 250 this time, slightly down from the other day, but they were well spread out. I biked home via Ellekrattet and heard a water rail in the reeds which was nice and a crane was calling between Jennes Sø and North Strand.

When I got home, I got a message from Knud inviting me out seawatching the next morning at Grenen, so I got an early night so I could be at the tip at 7.

Diver rescue equipment! . . . . that we didn’t need. . 

Our recent garden visitor, the tree sparrow (Skovspurv)

The weather was quite good this morning, and so I had the nets open for an hour or so. The majority of birds caught were redpoll but I did get another fresh great tit, which was nice. I’ve been hearing a lot about red kites being seen in Skagen that I haven’t seen yet, so I did a brief bit of raptor watching from the side of the ringing lab. Didn’t see any red kites, but an odd buzzard and a good movement of jackdaws. The fog then moved in rapidly putting an end to my raptor searching.

I then sat in the birders club continuing to fine tune the video, whilst also making myself available to questions from the few visitors coming in. A couple from Norway came in and told me that there was a small seal up at Grenen. My interest piqued, I had an enjoyable hour and a half birding up to Grenen and back, seeing a razorbill, and a few other species, but no live seal. There was a dead grey seal almost covered by sand, and that was interesting as I’d never been so close to one before. I also found an interesting feather on the beach, which may be from a woodcock, which would be a fantastic find!

After dinner I created a new photo archive folder for 2019 (not so easy as I had to spell Danish, which required copying it all down on paper before transferring to the computer). Whilst I was doing this I got a message from Flemming saying he’d found a red throated diver with some fishing line caught round it in the harbour. We resolved to try and catch it and cut the line off tomorrow.

Interesting feather, probable woodcock (skovsneppe)

A grey seal on the beach, fast becoming a part of the beach . .