Hej alle sammen,

I dag stod vi op kl. 03:45 for at komme ud til Grenen, fordi vi tænkte, der ville komme nogle spændende fugle ude over vandet efter så mange dages stormvejr. De første 30 minutter var fine nok; der var nogle mallemukker (fulmars) og 5, måske 6, alm. kjover (arctic skua), og så dagens højdepunkt: 7 dværgryler (little stint), som kom flyvende ind fra vandet og fortsatte mod sydøst.

Efter det var der ikke meget at skrive hjem om. Der kom en bjergvipstjert (grey wagtail), og det var det. Lucas ventede lige en times tid med at gå hjem, mens mig, Myrthe og Asia tog hjem, spiste noget morgenmad og lagde os til at sove igen. Lucas så en sølvhejre (great egret) i den time, han var der, ellers så han ikke noget.

Photo: Knud Pedersen

Efter vi havde sovet til middag, tog Lucas og Myhrte ind for at handle alle de mange ting, vi ikke havde, så nu kan vi også få mad i denne uge . Jeg havde ikke så meget at lave, nu hvor jeg ikke engang kunne se Tour de France i dag. Her til aften har vi været ude og sætte et vildtkamera op nede ved en natravnrede. Det var mega fedt! Da den lettede, endte den med at skide på mig, så i morgen kommer vi til at se noget godt (hvis I forstår sådan en lille en).

Vi ses!

People at SKAF: Lucas Corneliussen, Benjamin Bech, Asia Kane, Myrthe Van Brempt, Simon S. Christiansen, Knud Pedersen, Mark & co :)

Link to today's observations from observers in the area

It’s an understatement to just say it is windy today; it is crazy windy! You literally get blown away when you walk outside and so are the sandwich terns (Splitterne). It is very nice to watch them play in the wind though. They are working so hard to get a yummy meal.

We all slept in this morning and took it easy today. I went for a walk to Grenen and did some morning yoga on the beach. It felt really good except for the wind sandblasting my legs and hurting my eyes. ;p

Photo: Benjamin.

Even though it is so windy outside, the sun is still out sometimes and it is actually a pretty nice day. We all relaxed in the afternoon and went for a walk out once in a while. Asia enjoyed a really good view of a common tern (Fjordterne) and the surprise of a frog crossing the road. Benjamin took his camera outside and got some great photos of sandwich terns while Lucas worked on some data. I took the opportunity of free time to paint some birds for my bird sticker project while listening to a podcast. And then our new guests arrived in the apartment next doors, welcome!

Little bird paintings I made for my bird sticker project. Let me know if you have a bird request :)

After filling our stomachs with a lovely pasta made by Lucas, we discussed our plans for tomorrow. Luckily, it is going to be a way more eventful day than today. Oof! At least we will be rested well and can concur the coming week of early set alarms for counting and ringing. Great times are coming!

As every day, there were some common eiders (Edderfugl) and a common guillemot (Lomvie) roosting on the bunker. Look at that juvenile sandwich tern (Splitterne) photobombing :)

Now, we are about to start a game of birds every birder gets excited about: wingspan! Let’s get the bird cards out and lay some eggs.

Chiao!

People at SKAF: Lucas Corneliussen, Benjamin Bech, Asia Kane, Myrthe Van Brempt, Mark & co :)

Link to today's observations from observers in the area

The weekend began bright and early. Myrthe, Asia and I woke up at half past 03:00 AM and we found ourselves waiting for the morning rain to pass before we headed out to Worlds End 3. Benjamin was feeling ill and decided not to join us this morning - rookie mistake. And so, the three musketeers left Det Grå Fyr for the morning. Arriving at 04:30 AM, we watched several Almindelig Kjove (Arctic Skua), harassing the terns at the tip of Grenen before continuing their migration.

The morning continued, and fortunately, the weather held so we were able to get a few decent hours of observations in before the forecasted weather arrived. Our efforts were rewarded with a Storkjove (Great Skua) flying southwest. What a nice bird! At 0600 AM, Asia and Myrthe decided to head back to the station while I continued for another hour in the brutal wind. Birding with a new companion, I could feel the lack of migration in my bones. With the rain rapidly approaching, I too headed home after a three hour session in the cold. 

The only sun we saw all day

Midday at the station was slow today – all of us took a nice long nap to rest up and “defrost” from the morning and we said goodbye to out absolutely wonderful guests: have a great trip home Linda og Jeppe! Please come again soon! The rest of the day was filled with torrential rainfall for 99% of the afternoon and evening only letting up for 10 minutes maximum around 9 PM. Myrthe then made a very nice soup for dinner - Good Soup! And so another day passes at SKAF, what will tomorrow bring? We will have to see.

Vi ses!

People at SKAF: Lucas Corneliussen, Benjamin Bech, Asia Kane, Myrthe Van Brempt, Jeppe & Linda.

Link to today's observations from observers in the area

The start of the start began when the clock struck midnight. Myrthe and I enjoyed the music festival in town with Lisa and Simon and then we cycled home to Det Grå Fyr after a very nice evening of festivities. Arriving back at the lighthouse at 12:30 AM, we decided we would head out to Grenen in the hopes of catching some Dunlin (Ryle) on the beach. Unfortunately, despite our efforts, the weather conditions were not in our favor and the birds were able to detect us long before we were able to get close enough to them. Arriving back at the station around 03:00 AM, we went to bed defeated.

The sleep we got tonight was unfortunately undeserved, but needed nonetheless. Myrthe and our fabulous guests, Jeppe and Linda, went for a walk out to Grenen in the mid-morning only to be rained on by a strong thunderstorm. The story of the day - lots and lots of random periodic rain. Although, despite the rain, we still were able to complete a task that we had been procrastinating for the past week: FIXING THE BIKE! We finally did it (with the help of ‘Batman’ - otherwise known as Simon). Thank you for the help Simon!

The afternoon from my perspective was compromised of rest and studying of the moult patterns of the species we could possibly catch and ring in the coming weeks! Then the fun came, Jeppe and Linda took Benjamin to Netto to buy what he needed for dinner, PIZZA! We all made some great home-made pizzas which were quite nice and watched the Germany-Spain Euros match, What a great game. Tomorrow we head out for  morning observations at dawn - we will have to see what we find.

Vi Ses!

People at SKAF: Lucas Corneliussen, Benjamin Bech, Asia Kane, Myrthe Van Brempt, Simon S. Christensen, Jeppe & Linda.

Link to today's observations from observers in the area

Hello everyone,

Today was a quiet day with not so much to do. There was bad weather in the morning, with rain and strong winds, so we decided to sleep in a bit. Then we tried to fix some waders and repair a broken bike. Unfortunately, the waders turned out to be damaged beyond repair, so they will have to be used as scrap. As for the bike, we had some trouble fixing it, so we’ll have to come back to that later.

We’ve also been working on adding strings to the world map to connect every pin with Skagen. Our world map shows where all of our volunteers come from, and up to this point we’ve had volunteers from 3 different continents. I put the finishing touches on it today, and I must say I think it looks quite nice now!

Lucas and Myrthe went into town for the music festival and spent several hours enjoying the music. While they were gone, Benjamin and I had dinner with our lovely guests, Jeppe and Linda. Afterwards, we walked along the beach and saw a ringed Rødstrubet lom (Red-throated Diver), which came close enough for us to get some excellent views. It would be interesting to know where this bird was ringed, but we couldn’t read the number.

People: Myrthe Van Brempt, Lucas Corneliussen, Benjamin Bech, Asia Kane, Jeppe and Linda, Simon S. Christiansen, Lisa Vergin

Link to today's observations from observers in the area

I dag startede det med at vi skulle ud klokken 03:00 fordi vi skulle ud til  Sarvsøen og lave CES ringmærkning. Vores gæster Linda og Jeppe tog med os ud for at se hvordan det er at ringmærke. Simon kom og hentede de ting vi skulle have med og tog også Asia og Myrte med, mig og Lucas kørte med Jeppe og Linda vi åbnede nettene kl 04:00. der var ikke så mange forskellige fugle i nettet i dag de 2 primære arter var rørsanger (reed wabler) tornsanger (whitethroat) vi aflæste også en gærdesanger (lesser whitethroat) som var ringmærket i 2017 som en 2k hvilket vil sige den er omkring 8 år i dag! Det er faktisk meget gammelt. Den ældste registrerede Gærdesanger på verdensplan er 10 år. Vi hørte en Karmindompap (Rosefinch) kunne høres synge derude mellem runderne.

På Grenen var der melding om at gårdagens Lille Kjove (Long-tailed Skua) stadig var på plads. Da vi kom hjem, spiste vi noget frokost. Lucas meldte alle vores fugle fra ringmærkningen ind og efter det tog vi alle sammen en velfortjent middagslur. Da vi vågende kom Simon og vi meldte alt det andet vi havde set ind og tjekkede om vi havde overset noget. Asia lavede aftensmad som smagte virkelig godt. I morgen går vi en lidt kedelig dag i møde med en masse blæst og regn så vi kan ikke komme ud og ringmærke, men tilgængelig kan vi jo tage ud og se hvad der sker ude over havet.

Det var alt jeg havde på hjerte for i dag

Vi ses


Ringmærkning (CES Skarvsøen)
Gransanger (Chiffchaff) 1
Solsort (Blackbird) 1
Tornsager (C. Whitethroat) 7
Rørsanger (Reed wabler) 1
Munk (Blackcap) 1
Gærdesanger (Lesser Whitethroat) 2

Sum: 13

Folk på fuglestationen:  Myrthe Van Brempt ,Lucas Corneliussen, Asia Kane, Benjamin Bech, Jeppe & Linda, Simon S. Christiansen

Today’s observations in Dofbasen from observers in the area.

Hello folks!

We started the day with a beautiful sunrise and some cool observations at Grenen. Already on our way in, Lucas spotted a male serin (Gulirisk)! And so this wonderful day began.

We (Lucas, Benjamin and I) started counting at 4:05 am and Asia joined us a bit later. There were many Kittiwake (Ride), some red-throated loons (Rødstrubet lom) and surprisingly few Northern Fulmars (Mallemuk) flying over today. It was lovely to see a bunch of foraging gannets (Sule) and also sandwich terns (Splitterne) were feasting on fish.

The usually present reed bunting (Rørspurv) was again singing loudly as well as a yellowhammer (Gulspurv). We counted for 2 hours and just before we were heading back to the station, we enjoyed the view of a Red-backed shrike (Rødrygget tornskade). 

Lucas continued to World ends 3 and spotted 3 arctic skuas (Almindelig kjove) who went along the beach to harass some terns. He also observed few black-throated divers (sortstrubede lom), a Common Rosefinch (Karmindompap) and the first long-tailed skua (lille kjove) of the autumn!

Photo: Knud Pedersen

What a great start of the day! In the afternoon we all took a little nap. Benjamin and I went to visit the exhibition and climbed up to see the view from the lighthouse.

Our lovely guests in the apartment, Jeppe and Linda, had a relaxing day at the beach before going grocery shopping. Then Benjamin showed them how to use the telescope and they got some good views of the common eider (Ederfugl) and common ringed plover (Stor præstekrave). Benjamin also tried to catch some butterflies but sadly it was too windy.

Right now, the house is smelling amazing as Jeppe and Linda cooked us a delicuous dinner. We prepared our equipment for ringing tomorrow morning and that’s a wrap for today!

People: Myrthe Van Brempt ,Lucas Corneliussen, Asia Kane, Benjamin Bech, Jeppe & Linda, Simon S. Christiansen

link to today's observations from volunteers and local observers.

The day began with a bittersweet morning. Before the sun rose over Grenen; Simon, Sean, Myrthe and I headed out to Worlds End 1 (Grenen) for one last morning observation together. Unfortunately, 1 of the four bikes we have had a flat tire so Simon made the walk out to the point enjoying the area for the last time for the foreseeable future. 

We as a collective arrived a few minutes before 04:00 AM and began counting. The number of Northern Fulmars (Mallemuk) were decent within the first hour totalling close to 60 individuals. Small numbers of three species of auks flew by the point at various points of the morning and a beautiful, bright red, singing male Common Rosefinch (Karmindompap) sang atop a small tree. 

As Simon and Sean needed to be back at Det Grå Fyr to pack their remaining belongings and prepare for the southerly journeys, we made our way back to the Lighthouse. By 10:00 AM, the departure of our esteemed volunteers came and we said goodbye to Sean and Simon! We wish you both luck in Aalborg and Germany respectively! Ill miss you guys. The next few hours of the day consisted of preparing for the arrivals of the new volunteer crew and finalizing data from the spring season.

The afternoon arrived and so did Benjamin, our new 15 year old volunteer for Fyn who will be here for the next month as well as Asia, who arrived from the UK and will be here until the middle of August. 

Later in the afternoon, Simon led an introductory meeting and introduced us all to each other before beginning to review the necessary documents and Simons famous guidelines for working at Skagen Fuglestation.

Simon teaching his new disciples

Myrthe made a nice meal for dinner and Benjamin went out in the evening and found a nice Arctic Tern (Haveterne), Sortstrubet Lom (Black-throated Diver), and a pair of Arctic Skuas (Almindelig Kjove).

And so, another day passes at SKAF! Welcome to the new volunteers - lets find some good birds!

People: Lucas Corneliussen, Simon S. Christiansen, Simon Kiese, Sean Walsh, Myrthe Van Brempt, Asia Kane, Benjamin Bech, Jeppe & Linda

Link to today's observations from volunteers and local observers.

Hi everyone!

Like all good things, also the stay of the last spring-team volunteers comes to an end. To celebrate for one last time together, we four volunteers, Mette and my family (who is visiting right now) went to watch the football match between Denmark and Germany. After a short period the game was stopped due to a thunderstorm. In the meanwhile, the weather in Skagen was great so we used the break to go on top of the lighthouse for one last time. The view was beautiful!

Afterwards the match continued. There were some close off-sides, which kept it tensioned until the german team did, what Isis and I hoped, they will do – they scored a goal! Finally, they won. The disappointment from our danish fans flew away quickly and we continued our party with some beers, music and good mood until 01:30 am.

While we were watching the game, Lisa had a guided tour at Sandmilen. Two adults joined with three childreen to hear, see and learn about Nightjars (Natravn). It was super succesfull – the nightjars showed up well, so they could see them flying and sitting. The highlight was one, clapping its wings. It is a great species and I am sure, this amazed not just the childreen.

After a long sleep I woke up and decided to take a shower. While undressing me, Simon Sr. called. For a second I was not sure if I should take the call or ignore it, but I took it. This was the right decision, because he told me that the Rosy Starling (Rosenstær) at Gyvelmarkerne was seen again.

Séan and I were the only volunteers awake and Lars had two seats free, so we directly left. A few minutes later we arrived at the spot and there it was: my first Rosy Starling (Rosenstær)!!! The beautiful adult bird was foraging with Common Starlings on the ground of the wet field. It was super good to see, but unfortunately it disappeared soon after. Later Lucas arrived and also got a short glimpse of the bird.

Thanks to Werner Larsson, that we can show you his great pictures of the bird here!! He also got one in flight:

Simon Sr. even managed to get a sound recording of its higher pitched call:

That’s cool, isn’t it?

At Gyvelmarkerne we met some Locals, who became good friends over the season. It was a good opportunity to say goodbye to them. Knud told us, that the Pigeon we gave to him yesterday is doing well and started feeding, after being very tired yesterday. That’s good news!

In the noon, my family and I went to Skagen Bakery, since they did not know the typical danish Strawberry Cake. They – me included – really enjoyed it. This bakery is great!

Back at the station Seán had a session about the ageing of Common Whitethroats (Tornsanger). This was very helpful. We already learned much about the species during ringing in spring, but now in summer ageing gets more difficult, since the feature are less visible due to incresingly worn feathers. It is always fun to discuss ageing of birds, because it helps you a lot to improve your skills.

Then Simon Sr. and I had my final talk. We reflected the season and thought about ways to improve the station life. In my opinon this Fuglestation is already a fantastic place and it is really nice, that it is „alive“ and open for new ideas. Since it is the last complete day for me here, I had to finish some tasks, we cleaned the apartment and Seán wrote into the Guest Book. Nice new guests arrived and we had our last evening meeting with them. We just finished a nice dinner and in twenty minutes, we bring Isis to the train station. It feels so weird to leave soon.

Isis on her way to the train on her migration to Canada with stops in Belgium and Panama. Have a really good trip!

Those are the last words, I will write here for now. My time at Skagen Fuglestation is over, but I’m sure I will be back! After 8,5 months at this place it is time to go back to normal life, to study and deal with „normal human stuff“. Looking back on this time, there are many great birds to remember. Super rare birds like Sandhill Crane (Prærietrane), Steppe Eagle (SteppeØrn) or my best ever selffound (together with Hans) – Denmark’s first ever Eastern Yellow Wagtail (Østlig Gul Vipstjert). Rare birds in the hand like Blyth’s Pipit (Mongolskpiber), Great Snipe (Tradækker) and European Stormpetrel (Lille Stormsvale). Super pretty birds like the adult male Pallid Harriers (Steppehøg) or the Citrine Wagtail (Citronenvipstjert). Nature events like Nothern lights. Pretty birds in hand like Greenish Warbler (Lundsanger) and Short-eared Owl (Mosehornugle). All those amazing memories would not be the same without one factor – the amazing (!) people at the Bird Observatory! Thanks to all the volunteers I could spend short or long time together, thanks to the locals and thanks to Simon Sr. for your great job - you make all this fun possible! Sharing those great birds and moments with you was the best! I can’t wait to see you all again, whereever that will be!

Wow, this was enough sentimentally – to end my last blog here I will share some of my humour with you: Pranks we did to Simon Sr. (and some of them he did not even notice them yet):

The Hayley-has-the-stay-in-Sweden-prank:

When coming back from Sweden, we told everyone that Hayley got arrested in Sweden, based on a misleading video. Magnus and Seán fell for it and were ready to go to Sweden to pick her up.

The Easter-prank:

For Easter Simon Sr. hid five easter sweets in the lighthouse garden – one for each of us. We found all of them, but when he asked, if we found all of them, we answered „Yeah, we’ve got all six“. Even a week later he told us, that he could not remember to put six sweets in the garden.

The Rubber-Duck-prank:

I installed a „virus“ on Magnus’s and the stations laptop, which replaces some of the pictures in the web browser with pictures of rubber ducks. When scrolling through dofbasen, facebook or instragram, there were always rubber ducks. Always! This was a big laugh and some people (Magnus) did believe that it is a real virus for longer than a week.

The Label-prank:

We labeled several things in the apartment. Including one, the stations head will never find, but the volunteers see every day. A tradition to be continued by the next volunteers.

The Can’t-come-through-the-door-prank:

One day when Simon Sr. arrived Magnus put a chair on the inside of the door, so when Simon unlocked it with the keychip, he could not open it. Due to the construction of the doorhandle you could still press it down (so you could not feel that the chair was blocking the doorhandle on the other side) but not open the door. When we took the chair away at some point, Simon finally made his way into the apartment. Instead of believing our comment „probably just the keypad did not work“, he took the conclusion „this door is definitly broken“, went to the aethic quickly, took some tools and started unscrewing the door. When we repeated this prank later, Simon noticed that the not-working doors might be caused by us – with this he was completely right!

Skifta! 

 A link to today's observations from volunteers and local observers.

 Sum of observations of raptors on DOFbasen from today.

People: Isis Khalil, Seán Walsh, Lucas Corneliussen, Simon Kiesé, Linda and Jeppe Rørbæk, Lars Bo, Lisa Vergin and Simon S. Christiansen.

Coming to the end of the spring team's term, we're beginning to find it hard to occupy ourselves and decide what to do. If we go ringing, it turns out obscenely poor and we begin to question why we bothered to open nets. Like yesterday, I decided I would at least go out to count birds at Grenen; it may be the last chance I got to do that. 

Since I was already awake, I went out a little before sunrise, not really expecting anything, but I was rewarded with an early morning appearance of a Shag (Topskarv). This species is very rare in June, but their increasing population means increasing summer records. It has been the third Shag this June, two seen by me and one by Knud.

The rest of the count went by normally. There was one anomaly, an adult Herring Gull (Sølvmåge) that seemed to be melanistic (excess melanin pigment in its plumage) around most of its body.

Sparrowhawk (Spurvehøg) on Grenen Strand this morning

Later, while Isis was making dinner (amazing Shawarma), she happened to look outside the window and see a pigeon. While not an uncommon occurance in Skagen, seeing one huddled against the laboratory wall made it seem sick. So we went outside and hand caught it. It was tame, likely tired and hungry. It also had rings on it, to show that someone owed them. The rings showed that the bird, named Taurus, came from Sweden. Since it has lived all it's life in capitivity, making it as far as Skagen from Sweden was quite the feat. No wonder it was as tired as it was. We tried releasing the bird after checking it out, but it would not go far and allowed us to catch it again. We were very grateful when Knud came to pick the pigeon up to rehabilitate it.

And that's it. Lucas awaits the arrival of the new Autumn team, and the beginning of the Autumn ringing and observing season.

 A link to today's observations from volunteers and local observers.

 Sum of observations of raptors on DOFbasen from today.

People: Isis Khalil, Seán Walsh, Lucas Corneliussen, Simon Kiesé, Knud Pedersen, Lars Bo and Simon S. Christiansen