Hello!

This morning me and Prescillia opened the nets at Kabeltromlen. Later the other volunteers joined us and we were hoping to catch many birds but the weather was not up for that: we caught in total 12 birds (with recaptures). Considering that the weather in the next days will not be good we brought to the lighthouse all the nets and the materials (poles, ropes, pegs, signs etc) which were at Kabeltromlen and we said goodbye to Kabeltromlen for this year. The end of the 2022 season is a little bit sad, but we will continue ringing birds until the end of the opening of the ringing station (7th December): we have still some nets settled in the Lighthouse garden, than we have also the Night-catching sessions and the Snow Buntings (Snespurv) are waiting for us.

During the afternoon Prescillia went to the city, Frank tried to use the thermal to catch Jack Snipes during the day and the rest of us looked the football match of the day (Denmark-Tunisia 0-0).

In the evening we had a lot of guests that came to eat the fish and seafood which Simon ordered. It was wonderful, super tasty! We looked some pictures of the past year, many of them were with Hanelie, who stayed here for a very long time <3 

We also played some games :) 

Ringmærkning Kabeltromlen:

Solsort: 1

Gærdesmutte: 1

Musvit: 1

Munk: 1

Total = 4

Dagens observationer kan ses her

Folk på stationen: Simon Christiansen, Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Frank Osterberg, Aksel Y. Munkholm, Lars Mortensen, Knud Pedersen, Olof Lou, Frede Jakobsen.

Hello everyone,

Today, first wake up under the snow, the landscapes of Skagen become all white and are beautiful!

 Louis was also at North beach for observations, but the morning was really slow… Franck and Diana accompanied by our guests went also to North Beach in the hope of capturing Snow Buntings (snespurv). Unfortunately, the efforts made, no snow bunting was captured! At least, they played seriously with the snow, created a snow snow bunting! Sparrow auk (Spurvehøg) got involved to show the volunteers how to catch a snow bunting in front of their eyes!

Serious work..

Funny work...

On my side with Simon and Aksel, we opened the nets in the garden of the Light House. In spite of the birds around interested and intrigued by the apples (generously given by Knud), the seeds as well as the songs played, only one robin (Rødhals) was ringed.

We also had a visit of Peter Jürgensen, taxidermist and William Aarestrup, Denmark's oldest active ringer.

We enjoyed Gløgg and æbleskiver listening fantastic stories about … Birds! After, they went outside to see and try to catch some raptors! They finally saw that a buzzard (Musvåge), but they didn’t try. Simon posted this afternoon a report about the European Storm-Petrel (Stormsvalerne) (you can read it here: Report Stormsvalerne i Skagen 2022).

All the volunteers want to thanks Lone and Lars for their help and the nice time together these two last weeks and we will hope to see you again.

Ringing in the Light House Garden:

 Rødhals 1

Today's Observations

People at the station: Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Frank Osterberg, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Simon S. Christiansen, Jesper Madsen, William Aarestrup, Peter Jürgensen and our guests Karen and Søren

Hej allesammen!

Idag var nettene ved Kabeltromlen igen åbne efter et par dages pause pga. vind, så Frank og Prescillia åbnede net og efter kom vi andre også derud. Vejret og årstiden taget i betragtning var der fint med fugle. Bedste arter blev en stor Dompap, og en genfangst af en Gransanger ringmærket her sidste år, desværre ingen Sjaggere selvom der var massere af dem i området, og også Silkehaler sad tæt på kabeltromlen og var til stor glæde.

Efter første runde gik Simon og jeg ud for at lede efter Bjergpibere, som vi gerne vil prøve at fange i den kommende tid, vi så ihvertfald 3, men vi ved stadigvæk ikke hvor de overnatter, derudover så vi en Bjerglærke ude ved de yderste klitter og omkring 800 Sjaggere, som fløj rundt omkring sandorme sporet:)

Bjergpiber, tro det eller ej;)

Efter frokost kørte jeg, Simon, Jeppe og Prescillia ud for at kigge efter specielt måger ved Højen fyr og ved havnen, dem var der dog ikke så mange af, men vi så istedet for mit vedkommende den første sne i år:)

Lars og Lone er taget afsted, og vi har til aften fået nye gæster, Karen og Søren, som skal være her i en uge.

Ringmærkning Kabeltromlen:

Solsort 2

Rødhals 1

Gærdesmutte 1

Stor Dompap 2

Munk 1

Blåmejse 1

Rørspurv 1

Total: 9

Observationer fra idag kan ses her

Folk på stationen: Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Frank Osterberg, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Simon S. Christiansen, Jesper Madsen og vores gæster Karen og Søren

Hello! 

Yesterday night we tried to have a tour around the area of Ellekrattet, with thermal camera and it was really interesting: at least 11 Woodcocks (Skovsneppe) were spotted! The highlight of the night was a blackbird-looking bird: a beautiful Ring Ouzel (Ringdrossel), a not-very common species here in autumn, unluckily it was not caught but we will try again tonight.

This morning Louis and, later, Jeppe, went observing at Nordstrand: it was a really cold day and the wind was blowing exactly in our direction. They saw a couple of beautiful juvenile Long-tailed duck (Havlit) and still some Velvet Scoters (Flojsand) migrating. Also me, Frank and Prescillia were at Nordstrand, but we arrived later. Our goal was to try again to catch Snow Buntings (Snespurv) but the wind changed direction and intensity compared to yesterday. In general, I think that now we know all the tricks to catch them, we just have to be patient, consistent and to hope that it will come again wind from East (it is easier to set the trap, considering the soil structure and the position of the dunes). Today we added also a new friend to the team: a stuffed Snow Bunting (Snespurv, picture below) that can help us to “attract” the Snow Buntings to come and feed with the seeds that we put near the net. It worked, because the birds were curious about it and they came very close.

Although I feel that the other volunteers start losing hope I really like to put effort in this kind of activity: for a so unique species a lot of effort is always worth it, I think. I could do this catching method every day, even if the cold is getting stronger and stronger (luckily I am not really a cold person) and the biking to the beach with all the material is really painful when the wind is blowing against us. Unluckily tomorrow it is Sunday and there will be a lot of people around the beach and we also need to fix the last nets at Kabeltormen before putting them down for the winter: that’s why I can’t be there also tomorrow to trying to catch them. Monday will be definitely the perfect day, if the wind will blow in the right direction!!! 

Struggling with the wind and the sand 

During the afternoon we cleaned the house and me and Prescillia played Wingspan. I should mention (as agreed with Louis) that I won 3 times against him at table football yesterday, it was fun!

Later, Simon warmed up for all of us some æbleskiver accompanied with some gløgg and it was very nice! We ate them while looking at some pictures of birds and some of the activities in ornithological station that Simon did. 

Now we are ready to eat the country-food that Jeppe (so, in this case from Denmark) has prepared for us: later we will try to catch something cool.

Ringmærkning Kabeltromlen:

Fuglekonge: 5

Blåmejse: 5

Total = 10

Ringmærkning Nordstjernevej:

Rødhals: 2

Blåmejse: 13

Musvit: 13

Skovspurv: 7

Bogfinke: 2

Grønirisk: 8

Gulspurv: 1

Total = 46

 Dagens observationer kan ses her

Folk på stationen: Simon Christiansen, Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Frank Osterberg, Jeppe Therkildsen Madsen, Michael Anker og vores gæster Lars og Lone.

I decided to have a bit of a slow morning and didn't join the early observations at North Beach. The clouds had cleared a bit during the night and we had a really beautiful sunrise painting one side of the lighthouse a spectactular reddish orange which I could see while having my coffee. On my way to North Beach I overheard a flock of Waxwings (Silkehale) calling to eachother at Jenner Sø, but didn't directly observe any. Still it is nice to know they are in the neighbourhood as I think they are gorgeous birds!

And we had a spectacular happening at Jenner Sø today: Michael Anker caught and ringed a Firecrest (Rødtoppet Fuglekonge). It is seldomly enountered here and is the second one caught at Skagen this year.

Today's observations at North Beach were mainly dominated by the scoters, Common and Velvet, with the highlights being Long-tailed Duck (Havlit) and Red-Throated Diver (Rødstrubet Lom) and a solitary Mute Swan (Knopsvane) flying straight over us. Aksel and Louis went back to the house around noon to do a bit of cleaning - Aksel is also leaving us for the weekend but will be back again on Monday.

The Whoosh Net

We decided to move the Woosh Net a bit farther down the beach to see if it would improve our Snow Bunting (Snespurv) luck. Moving the net was slightly difficult since the ground is sand on top and gravel underneat which makes it hard to fasten the pegs holding the lines. Still we prevailed and had several visits by the buntings at the new location, with a few interuptions from people visiting the beach and a sparrowhawk coming in low for a possible meal.
Neither the hawk nor we had any luck catching buntings though. In our case the net had been weighed down by sand blowing on to it and it didnt deploy when we pulled on the string.

Still the mood was high when we decided to call it off at 3pm; we were cold but undeterred and tomorrow surely we will catch some buntings!

Speaking of the cold the weather forecast promises us snow in the weekend. At least the wind is dying down and we may be able to go to Kabeltromlen this Sunday according to Simon.

People at the station: Aksel Y. Munkholm(½), Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Knud Pedersen, Jeppe, Simon, Frank Osterberg and our guests Lars og Lone

Ringing at Jenner Sø

Rødtoppet Fuglekonge 1

Gærdesmutte: 1

Stor Gråsisken: 6

Lille Gråsisken: 6

Totals: 14

Today's Observations

Early morning for me, Diana, Precillia, and Louis for the observations with the Whoosh net with the hopes of a Snow Bunting (Snespurv) catch.

The Whoosh Net set-up at Nordstrand

We came very close with birds wandering close to and even within the firing range of the net including the Lapland Bunting (Lapværling) but unfortunately no birds were caught this time, the closeness however, does bring hope for future attempts

A Snow Bunting and the Lapland bunting (Right)

Highlights from the observations were a Skua sp, likely a Pomarine (Mellemkjove), seen by Precillia and Louis. A Goosander (Stor Skallesluger), a nice male Long-tailed Duck (Havlit), plenty of Velvet Scoters (Fløjlsand) and the supporting cast of Goldeneye (Hvinand) and Red Throated Divers (Rødstrubet lom). Whilst at the observations, Lone, Askel and Jepper also joined us later in the morning. Jepper also briefly went into town for some shopping and also checked out the cemetery and found 6 Waxwings (Silkehale), and watched them luckily escape a Sparrowhawk (Spurvhøg) attack.

When we had all returned home, got some food and recuperated from the wind and cold. For the afternoon, I hoped we could open a few sheltered nets out at Kabeltromlen with tape lures for Fieldfare (Sjagger) and Redwings (Vindrossel). Unfortunately, they didn’t show, and only one flock of fieldfare flew over. We did, however, capture 4 Wrens (Gærdesmutte) and one Blue tit (Blåmejse)which were very welcome following the lack of thrushes.

Everyone was a bit tired for night catching this evening so we hope to bring good news tomorrow of Snow Buntings!

Ringing Kabeltromlen: 

Wren / Gærdesmutte: 4

Blue Tit / Blåmejse: 1

People at the station: Aksel Y. Munkholm, Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Knud Pedersen, Jeppe, Simon, Frank Osterberg og vores gæster Lars og Lone

Dagens observationer kan ses her

Hej alle sammen

Min blog vil denne gang starte med i går aftes. Frank, Jeppe og Lone tog ud på natfangst i håbet om at fange skovsnepper. Missionen blev fuldført, og de vendte tilbage til stationen med 1 ung skovsneppe og 2 solsorte. Flere individer af skovsneppe blev også set, men dog uden at det var muligt at komme tæt på dem. Derfor prøvede vi selvfølgelig også her til aften med et omgang natfangst. Sammen med Simon kørte vi hele byen tynd for mulige steder, hvor vi måske kunne finde en skovsneppe eller to. Der var dog intet hæld i dag, men i kan da få et billede fra i går aftes.

Billede af skovsneppe fra den 8/11

I dag var det for blæsende til ringmærkning, så Louis, Jeppe og jeg tog ud og lavede morgenobs sammen med Knud, mens resten af flokken med tilslutning fra Lone udførte mallemukindsamling.

På morgenobsen var der hele morgenen en lind strøm af sangsvaner, som kom trækkende forbi, hvor især nogle af flokkende stod nærmest helt stille i modvinden. Derudover er snespurvene begyndt at have interesse i vores frø, så nu bliver der gjort en ekstra indsats i morgen for at fange en eller måske flere. Da obsen sluttede, havde en lapværling tilsluttede sig en flok snespurve, hvor vi havde god mulighed for at nyde den ellers ofte meget sky fugl.

På mallemukindsamlingen var der ikke meget at berette om. Der blev ikke fundet nogle friske døde fugle, men til gengæld meget plastik… Lidt levende fugle kom der dog heldigvis forbi! En kjove kom flyvende over hoved på dem ved grenen, mens 4 Tundrasædgæs blev set senere på turen.

Vi krydser fingre for en masse ringmærkede snespurve i morgen!

Ringmærkede fugle:

1 skovsneppe

2 solsorte

Dagens observationer kan ses her

People at the station: Aksel Y. Munkholm, Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Knud Pedersen, Jeppe, Simon, Frank Osterberg og vores gæster Lars og Lone

Hello everyone,

Today, Aksel and I went to North Beach to join Knud to do the counting. The birds were there with two great white egrets (Sølvhejre), 5 Bean goose (Tajgasædgås), 46 Canada goose (Canadagås), 452 whooper swans (Sangsvane), 706 greylags geese (Grågås)! Passages of wigeons (Pibeand), mallards (Gråand), velvet scoters (Fløjlsand) and goldneyes (Hvinand) were also seen. A nice morning despite the cold weather that put us to the test!

Whooper swans (Sangsvane), picture by Knud Pedersen

On their side, Louis & Diana showed the opening of the nets at Jeppe. Joined by Simon and also Franck who was a volunteer last September that he is back for ten days, this windy morning was rather slow with 11 captures. However, they could see a Peregrine Falcon (Vandrefalk), water pipits (Bjergpiber) but also appreciated the regular passages of swans. Jeppe handled his first bird and not the least, known for its kindness, the famous blue tit (Blåmejse)!

A beautifull recaptured great tit (Musvit)!

This afternoon, except for Diana that she prepared an Italian dinner for the “Country Week Food” with an amazing risotto alla Milanese and a tiramisu and me who were working on the computer, everyone enjoyed being outside.

Aksel and Jeppe walked along the beach and found a dead blackbird (Solsort) and enjoyed eider (Ederfugl) catching. Success ... but the female was too weak to be ringed, so it was released. Louis also went to the tip to see the oystercatcher (Strandskade) and the snow buntings (Snespurv) which we hope to capture soon but also took beautiful pictures of the black-legged kittiwakes (Ride) in number today.

A black-legged kittiwake (Ride)

Franck was looking for the night capture tonight, 5 woodcocks (Skovsneppe) and 2 jack snipes (Enkeltbekkasin) was seen, and we hope they will be ringed tonight!

A woodcock (Skovsneppe)

Ringing at Kabeltromlen :

Rødhals 3

Gærdesmutte 2

Blåmejse 3

Lille Dompap 1

Munk 1

Sjagger 1

Total 11

Today’s observations in the area on DOFBasen

People at the station: Aksel Y. Munkholm, Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Knud Pedersen, Jeppe, Frank Osterberg og vores gæster Lars og Lone

Hej allesammen!

Idag var der ingen ringmærkning da vi manglede en ringmærker, så istedet stod den på morgenobs og net fiksning.
Diana, Knud og jeg var ved Nordstrand for at lave morgenobs. Jeg når ikke engang at sætte teleskopet op før Knud siger at der kommer en Hvidnæbbet Lom helt tæt på kysten, men den kom så tæt på kysten at man fint kunne se den i håndkikkert, jeg nåede desværre ikke at få kameraet frem før den var over alle bølger, Diana var lige gået ud på stranden uden kikkert for at sætte fælden til Snespurve og sprede frø ud, så det var kun Knud og jeg der nået at se den:/ ellers var det ikke det helt store der skete over havet, nogen Grågæs, Sangsvaner, lidt Canadagæs og nogen flotte Tejster. Efter præcis en time kommer igen en Hvidnæbbet Lom, nu den anden vej så måske den samme fugl som kom tilbage, nu noget længere ude så heller ingen fotos denne gang:/
Vi så også en meget fin Søkonge som godt nok var lidt langt ude, men på et tidspunkt blev overhalet af 2 alke, hvor man virkelig kunne se den store størrelses forskel.
Lidt før sidste timer er der ret stille, og jeg sidder og kigger efter måger der flyver efter en fiskekutter ret langt ude, og tænker på hvor fedt det kunne være med en god Gråmåge, og jeg opdager så når båden kommer lidt tættere på en meget hvid måge og umiddelbart uden mørke vingespidser, men da båden kommer tættere på viser den lidt mørkt i vingespidsen, så Knud mener det kan være en form for fejlfarvet Sølvmåge?
10 minutter før vi sluttede kom Jesper, som skal være på stationen den næste uge, også ud til os, og nåede at se en meget lille smule af hvordan det foregår på havobs.
Og sidst men ikke mindst en Havørn kom flydende, og faktiskt lavede kontrol af fiskekutteren mågen fløj efter;)

Fiskerikontrolskibet, Havørnen;)

Prescillia og Aksel havde begge en stille morgen, Prescillia brugte morgenen på at blive helt rask og Aksel skulle til nå til apoteket, senere gik de begge ud for at sy huller i ringmærknings nettene.

I mangel af billeder fra idag, bringer vi her til sidst et arkiv billede af en af Dianas fantastiske tegninger:)

Her en, Rødhals

Observationer fra idag kan ses her

Folk på stationen: Aksel Y. Munkholm, Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Knud Pedersen, Jesper Madsen og vores gæster Lars og Lone

Hello!

This morning unfortunately Prescillia was a little bit sick so she couldn’t go observing, but it seems that at Grenen there were a lot of interesting birds (the link of the observation of the day for the area is reported at the end of the blog)! Louis and Aksel opened the nets, then me, Gustav and Michael joined for the ringing. It was a busy day, mainly in the first round: an interesting high number of Blackbirds (Solsort) were in the nets. At the end of the first round Lona and Lars arrived, with a beautiful cake, that gave us a lot of energy.

The highlight of the day was certainly a elderly Blue Tit (Blåmejse, picture below): it was ringed in 2016 in Ellekrattet area, as a juvenile bird, than it was recaptured some other times at Kabeltromlen but it was not seen since 2020. Another very special moment today was the sighting of 16 Whooper swans (Sangsvane) passing very low over Kabeltromlen: simply amazing.

The ringing was very nice today, it is always a pleasure to have Michael with us and it was very nice to meet Gustav in these days (also if he won at Klask game): we hope to see you again somewhere! I already miss our guest Jørgen, a really beautiful person, but we are also all happy because some new volunteers are coming next days! I hope that being more people we will be able to put as more effort as possible in catching Snow Buntings (Snespurv) because the season is ending and we have a lot of other stuff to do.

We went home quite late, so we had lunch and it was already almost dark outside: just Aksel went out for a long walk to Grenen, while I tried to make Prescillia confortable to rest and recover a little bit from her fever and I worked on my presentation and on renaming all the videos I took since September that we need to mount the Volunteer video (a video that will be shared on social media to find the next wonderful volunteers for the next year).

Ringmærkning Kabeltromlen:

Fuglekonge: 6

Jernspurv: 1

Rødhals: 3

Skægmejse: 4

Rørspurv: 4

Munk: 5

Bogfinke: 4

Vindrossel: 5

Solsort: 18

Total = 50

Dagens observationer kan ses her.

Folk på stationen: Aksel Y. Munkholm, Louis Kristoffer Poulsen, Diana Sciandra, Prescillia Lemesle, Gustav Nyberg, Michael og vores gæster Lars og Lone