Good-bye after too short a stay

Before I say my good-byes, I would like to congratulate Ottenby Bird Observatory to their 75th birthday! I wish you a lot of pretty birthday birds, like this one:

I have only been here for less than 3 weeks this summer and the days have flown by way too fast, as I knew they would. Unfortunately I cannot stay longer as I am starting a new teaching position in August and still need to prepare a bit. It would maybe have been smart to go on holidays before I start my new job and Skagen Bird Observatory definitely is not holidays but it is so much better! Of course, this time of the year, the hardcore birders don’t care to come here (or to go birding in Europe at all) but it has been a lot of fun seeing all the little baby birds starting to fledge, learning to fly and flying straight into our nets. It is good to see that the breeding success at least in the common birds seems to be good enough. And it is also great when you get to challenge yourself as a ringer sometimes, like when there are 20 tits in the net all at once.

We had a lot of new people here at the station who were eager to learn and I tried to divide my time between all of them which was not easy for sure. People tend to underestimate how hard it is to really learn bird ringing because it is so much more than just putting a ring about a bird’s leg. And even with twenty years of experience I can still leanr a lot myself too.

But then that’s what we are all here for, right? Learn from each other and learn from nature and just be grateful that we get to experience all of this and that we get to share just a tiny little bit of the bird’s long (or short) journey in this world. You feel connected to every bird you have ever caught and it is special when you hear that it was recaptured and it is still alive, maybe has even travelled a long distance. Like the bird we caught from Belgium.

As for today, you might have guessed from my babbling that I don’t have much to say. We went to Jennes Sø for the CES ringing and with the hot weather and all it was quite slow regarding birds although we had a nice variety of almost all common birds (see list below)

On the other hand, we had a large number of visitors, all bird lovers who just came to see what we were doing and we exchanged some tips on where to go birding and what to see. Mathilde also started ringing properly today and is learning extremely fast.

I got to ring a last blue tit (blåmejse) for this year, which is enough to make my happy.

After that we went to Skarvsøen for cormorant monitoring. Just like last time, most of the juveniles are independent and move around quite a bit. We saw a red-necked grebe on the nest, which was nice. Maybe some more little zebra-grebes will show up in the next few days.

Finally in the afternoon we met Simon again, who had been on “holidays”, ringing cooler birds than he would get here in Skagen. We are not jealous at all, of course, who would want to see baby phalaropes, really?!

After I am gone, I suppose it will get even quieter now. I wish all of you all the best. Catch some good birds and enjoy your time here at Skagen. I will be back in approximately a year from now. See you!

Ringmærkning (Jennes Sø):

Solsort (blackbird) 1

Munk (blackcap) 1

Tornsanger (common whitethroat) 1

Bogfinke (chaffinch) 1

Topmejse (crested tit) 1

Gransanger (chiffchaff) 3

Gærdesanger (lesser whitethroat) 2

Musvit (great tit) 1

Blåmejse (blue tit) 1

Rørsanger (reed warbler) 1

Dompap (bullfinch) 2

total: 15

Folk på stationen: Mathilde Ducroz, Frank Osterberg, Martina Hillbrand, Simon S. Christiansen, Jesper og Margit. 

Klik her for at se dagens observationer fra Dofbasen af fugle i Skagen.