After the festivities the evening before, no one was up early, especially the latest returnees who didn’t get out of bed until noon! Those of us that were up earlier however continued to get on with jobs around the Observatory and manning our information posts at the birders club. We also put the sign out for a guided tour, but we didn’t get any visitors. The boys went out birding earlier in the morning.

Later in the day we were joined by Morten Christensen, who will be staying with us for a few days. We sat and watched the football and then Joakim and Mads came in to say they’d seen a red throated diver ridiculously close on the beach. Morten and I dashed out to try and find it, but alas it seemed to have moved on quickly. We did see some house martins picking up seaweed on the beach, presumably for nesting material? I’ve never heard of them using seaweed before. Before the next football game started I cooked us all a vegetable stew, and we headed down to watch Croatia satisfyingly outplay Russia.

Red throated diver

House matins gathering seaweed for their nests.

Today was the day for CES, so we were all up early, a little earlier than usual as we have to erect two nets each session now to reduce squirrel damage overnight. The net was pretty tangled and took an hour or so to erect but other than that the morning went smoothly. We caught 15 or so birds, many youngsters and a few adults that were starting their post breeding moult, which was an educational experience for all. We also had a pair of red backed shrikes and a common crossbill present at the ringing site, which was unusual and led us to hope they’d go in the net, however they sadly didn’t.

After the CES wrapped up we headed back to the Obs for some much needed sleep. However we didn’t sleep for long as we were heading to the Skagen Music Festival! We watched a great Irish band during the afternoon and moved around throughout the evening, trying to catch music and the football, before heading back in ones and twos to the Obs much later on.

Great tit adult showing postbreeding moult.

Juvenile robin.

Eftersom vi havde været sent ude i går, sov vi længe. Der var ikke meget planlagt og det stod til primært at blive en praktisk dag. Joakim og jeg cyklede ved middagstid til Skagen for at handle mad til vores aftensmad. Vi besluttede os for kartoffelmos med topping og bacon, hvilket var en førstegangsting for os begge.
Ved 15:00-tiden cyklede Joakim, Michele og jeg til skarvkolonien ikke langt fra stationen. På vejen så vi to hugorme, Joakim og min første. Ved skarvkolonien blev der observeret og talt unger i rede såvel som gamle fugle. Optællingen var rimelig hurtigt overstået og vi cyklede hjem for at nå at slappe lidt af inden der skulle laves aftensmad. Tilbage på stationen var Peter blevet færdig med sin video han havde brugt lang tid på. Vi var imponerede, og den opnår forhåbentligt at få lidt flere mennesker ind i Birder’s Club
Maden blev overraskende god, om end den blev en anelse forsinket. Michele sagde sågar at det måske var det bedste han havde fået mens han har været her. Vi gik tidligt i seng da vi skulle op kl. 03:15 morgenen efter og ringmærke.

Juvenile Adder

Planen for denne dag var til at starte med at sove længe. Afhængigt af vejret ville der nemlig være mulighed for at ringmærke terner natten til torsdag, så det skulle vi jo være udhvilede til. Denne plan gik dog hurtigt i vasken da der kl. 06:56 kommer en melding via BirdAlarm om, at der er observeret Triel ude på Grenen. Simon gør både Mads og jeg opmærksomme på dette omkring kl. 07:15 og vi kommer hurtigt ud af sengene og afsted mod Grenen med både kamera, teleskop og kikkert under armen. Fuglen var desværre væk da vi nåede frem, men sammen med Sebastian og Jonathan, som havde fundet Trielen en times tid forinden, igangsatte vi en eftersøgning i området omkring Grenen. Kl. 09:28 var heldet med os (eller nogen af os), da Trielen pludselig flyver op fra jorden nedenfor Verdens Ende. Jeg er selv heldig nok til at befinde mig kun 20 meter fra hvor fuglen genfindes. Det er dog ikke alle der er lige heldige og da Mads befinder sig på den forkerte side af Verdens ende får han ikke fuglen at se. Det lykkes os desværre ikke at genfinde den selvom vi eftersøger den en times tid derefter.

Herefter brugte vi (Mads og jeg) en times tid på Verdens Ende hvor 7 røde glenter, 12 musvåger, 1 rørhøg og en spurvehøg kom forbi. Resten af dagen gik med afslapning uden de helt store aktiviteter for vores vedkommende.
Dog var der ikke helt stille på fuglestationen denne dag og alt imens Mads og jeg var på Grenen benyttede de andre tiden til noget andet. Af heraf kan nævnes: Simon havde en guidet tur for 2 besøgende om morgen, hvor der desværre ikke var mange fugle hverken i nettene eller på himlen på den halvanden time som turen varede. Kurt og Niels fra Skagen Fuglestations bestyrelse holdte møde med Simon i dagligstuen. Peters dag gik primært med at arbejde på en video fra fuglestationen.

Aften bød ikke på ringmærkning af terner, men Mads, Peter, Micheal og jeg drog alligevel mod Grenen kl. 24:00 for at se om der skulle gemme sig nogle terner eller vadefugle som vi kunne fange og eventuelt ringmærke. Vi medbragte lommelygter og et stort håndholdt net. Fugle var der ikke mange af, et par ryler, 2 terner og en enlig Canadagås var hvad det kunne blive til på Grenen. På vej tilbage mod fuglestation løb vi dog ind i et par store præstekraver med to næsten flyvefærdige unger, hvoraf det lykkedes Micheal og Peter at fange den ene. Den blev dog hurtigt sat ud til forældrene igen.
Alt i alt en rolig dag med lidt forskellige små-aktiviteter, hvor Trielen var dagens største hit og skuffelse (alt efter hvem man spørger).

Stoer præstekrave (juvenile)

Triel - Jonathan Hemmer-Hansen

Today is the first day of ringing in Grenen for new volunteers arrived yesterday evening, Mads and Joakim. We open the nets at 06:00 am.
The day is good, and we take the opportunity to clean all the grass from the nets. We capture a good number of birds, many of them juveniles, and two common redpolls, beautiful for me, as they are not common in Italy. Mads and Joakim are very enthusiastic about catches, and eager to learn, they listen and they are very careful while I and Peter ringing each bird. At 9:30 we close the nets. In three and a half hours we ringed 24 birds.We all go back to the observatory, and while Peter and I resume our indoor tasks, the boys go to Skagen to do their shopping for the observatory.

In the afternoon Simon, Peter and I meet in Birder's club, to illustrate new works and proposals, and think of new ideas for optimising the Birder's club, in terms of open space for the reception and entertainment of visitors to the observatory.
Subsequently Mads and Joakim join us, and we move on to the study of the age of the passerines, one of the most important activities to consolidate the experience of ringing, which Simon promotes in the observatory involving all the volunteers. Simon projects images of different individuals of different age classes, belonging to different species and with different moulting strategies, onto the maxi-screen. The participants, provided with a wing scheme and ageing codes, must correctly determine the age of each individual. I think it is one of the most effective methods to study and better understand the moulting strategies of passerines. Later I explain to Mads and Joakim the operation of the ringing database, and together we input today’s ringing data.

As soon as we finish Mads and Joakim start preparing dinner. They prepare a delicious dish, I think in Danish style, that Peter and I appreciate very much!
After dinner there is a daily meeting, we speak about today's activities and plan the following days.
Today was a very productive and instructive day.

Ringed birds:         
6 Whitethoat          4 Crested tit
2 Blackbird            1 Reed warbler
1 Great tit.             3 Lesser whitethroat
1 Reed bunting      4 Blue tit
2 Common redpoll

Simon giving a moult lecture

Crested tit and blue tit juveniles

We remained around the lighthouse in the morning today, with the nets open from 7 to 11am. Michele caught a few juveniles of various species, but the highlight was during my first round when I extracted the first crested tit of the summer, if not the year and my first in the hand. Like all the others it was a juvenile, but no less impressive for all that. Aside from that, there was a brief passage of raptors including a red kite and a few buzzards, one of which was doing a very convincing impression of a rough legged buzzard, as they can irritatingly do quite often. Michele had a honey buzzard over on the afternoon, so not a bad day for raptors considering the month.

After lunch it was back on with the inevitable computer work, whilst waiting for our two new volunteers, Mads and Joakim to arrive. They turned up around four, narrowly avoiding a several hour traffic jam. They were given the ‘grand tour’ and introduced to everyone and then had a quick bird around the local area, coming from Copenhagen they were not familiar with some of the species that he have here . Michele cooked us a lovely pasta dish in the evening before we introduced the two lads to the evening meeting. The outcome of which was a plan to ring at Grenen tomorrow, come hell or high winds (probably not high winds).

Crested tit

Our plans to ring at Grenen are thwarted by stronger wind than forecast coming from an unfavourable direction. So we make the most of it by continuing to catch up with our admin and making ourselves available to visitors.

Around lunchtime we head in to do other tasks, that can only be done on the stations computer, DOFbasen and checking up some odd rings that had been flagged up on the ringing data website. Simon is busy all day leading a group around the local area, but comes in after lunch with Peter Christensen, who donates a tables worth of bird books to the observatory, which was very generous!
Michele takes advantage of the slow afternoon to head to the beach for some birding/bathing and I continue to catch up with tasks at the Obs.

I cook us a hasty meal before we head downstairs to join several locals in watching the Denmark-Croatia football game and a fun time is had by all (more fun perhaps by those without a side in this game!).

Black headed gull

Eider

This morning Peter and I go to the beach to the north to monitor the chicks of ringed plovers and to find the terms favourite roosting spot. We observe two of the the chicks of ringed plovers that we have ringed more than two weeks ago, sandwich terns, common terns, arctic terns, gannets, eiders, great black-backed gulls, lesser black-backed gulls, herring gulls, black-headed gulls, five honey buzzards, kestrels, cormorants and various species of passerines.

In mid-morning we return to the observatory to entertain tourists and work on the PC until lunchtime.

In the afternoon, Peter stay at the observatory to work on the internal tasks, while I go out to take some photos that I need for an activity with the visitors. I go back to the observatory at 6.00 pm to prepare dinner, Italian pasta with mushrooms. After dinner we meet to plan the various activities for the next few days. We decide to go and ring Grenen tomorrow morning if the wind is not strong.

We have received a book a few days ago from the Norwegian Store Færder Fugelstajon as a gift. It celebrates 50 years of the observatories life and is a very interesting read (for those of us that can read Norwegian!)

Ringed plover adult

It was a very windy morning when we awoke, putting paid to any ideas we had of ringing. So another day of admin and being ‘information kiosks’ for visitors. Before we started Michele headed to Grenen to check out the tern roosts position for possible ringing excursions in the future. As it turned out the dog walkers beat him there and the terns were not stationary when he arrived. We’ll try again tomorrow. He did find two more ringed plover chicks that were unringed so we may try and rectify that tomorrow.

It was a reasonably useful morning for me, with some computer work done and with my sign that says ‘ask me about birds’ in the birding club I managed to help a few people with inquiries and even get them into the exhibition.

Post a ‘leftover’ lunch, we had an hour or two to ourselves, before I went out for cormorant monitoring in the late afternoon. The colony is fairly dynamic now, and things have changed yet again. From one side nests appear to be emptying because chicks have fledged, and from the other it seems nests are being emptied of eggs and small chicks by a predator (can’t say fox as I’ve not seen it again since the first time). It looks to be a much more successful year for cormorant productivity this year which is great news. On the other hand the red necked grebes have completely abandoned the site, all seven of their nests disappearing within a week. The lake however is still a hive of activity, plenty of young black headed gulls (where did they come from?) greylag geese, young mallards and plenty of singing warblers.

After I returned the Friends of Skagen Bird Observatory were having a grill. It was good to catch up with some of the friends, and the members of the board, and the food was good too! Very pleasant way to finish off a hot day.

This morning Peter and I are going to ring at the CES site, we open the nets at 04:30 am. Today is a sunny day, not windy and very hot, good for the working of the mist-nets, but not good for the huge number of mosquitoes and flies! We catch a good number of breeding species, many young birds fresh from the nest. Between each net check we find the time for the maintenance of the net lane, cutting the tall grass and the shrubs. At 10.30 am, after six hours as per protocol, we close the mist-nets at CES and go back to the observatory. At 11:00 we decide to open the nets in the garden for a couple of hours, to try to catch some young crested tit, which we saw the previous day around the nets. But the weather doesn’t help us, as soon as I open the nets the wind increases considerably, and it is not good for the nets. We only take a recapture of a blackcap.

We take this time to be available to visitors to the observatory for all questions and trivia.
Peter goes to the center and I stay at the birder's club, and between each net I entertain visitors, including a family of Italians with whom I have the opportunity to freely speak my language after a month. I talk to them about the various activities of the Observatory and answer their questions. They are very surprised that I work here, they really appreciate the conversation and they compliment me, I am very pleased.

After lunch we rest for a few hours.

Later I reactivate myself to arrange and thoroughly clean the laboratory.
For dinner, Peter prepares a super minestrone, just what it takes today!
After dinner we update the databases with the data collected in the morning and we organise ourselves for the following days.

Ringed birds                        Recaptures
2 Blackbird.                            1 whitethroat 
1 Robin.                                 1 wren
2 Reed warbler.                     1 blackcap
2 Lesser whitethroat
1 Chiffchaff
1 Willow warbler
1 Blackcap
1 Whitethroat
1 Blue tit
5 Great tit 

Common whitethroat 

Grey Herons over Jennes Sø