A rainy day inside.

Hello everyone,

To no surprise to most of you probably, whether you are from Denmark or elsewhere, the weather was not so great today. It seems Europe is catching up with some cold and rainy days it missed this winter. The combination of rain and wind made it obvious that we would, yet again, not be able to go ringing this morning. The risks of the birds getting too wet in the nets, as well as the nets getting damaged by the wind, are just too high and the slow days we’ve had at Kabeltromlen in the past week were just one more reason to avoid it. As for the morning observations, they could still have happened as some birds are not deterred by these weather conditions and some bunkers could have provided some shelter. But we decided to sleep in instead this morning as we preferred to keep some energy for days where migration would be more abundant. Jesper and Mette, the new guests who arrived yesterday evening, also made the same decision and slept in this morning.

Everyone woke up on their own time and once we were all up, we decided to play Wingspan again. With the greatest score so far, Alice won this game! I guess this means we will need to offer Robbe another chance for him to get this revenge as today was not the day for it. This was followed by hard goodbyes for Robbe who is leaving for Aalborg today although only for two days. I will let him tell you more about that when he is back. Then, we all attended to our own personal tasks and took some time to chill as well. Alice tried to get started on this week’s nocturnal migration (NocMig) recording but after trying to open the file for a while and trying different laptops, it turned out the file was corrupted. Thankfully, this is all fixed now and she will be able to work on it from now on. Hanelie finished writing of her university report about her time in Denmark and only has a few details to add such as sources. She also helped a bit more with the bird quiz that will be used for the exhibition, notably the German version of it. On my side, I made progress on the statistics for my internship using every biologist’s beloved program R.

While we all stayed inside, which felt weird and is uncommon, Jesper and Mette were brave enough to face the wind and went for a walk to Grenen. They saw some Northern Gannets (Sule), some Sanderlings (Sandløber) and a couple of seals. Just like us, they are hoping nicer weather will be back soon and the migration will start to pick up again.

Tonight, we are going to Hirtshals again for another try at night catching! So, cross your fingers for us and we are hoping to have more successful news to give you tomorrow this time. We will also be at Grenen for morning observations and the laser binoculars will be out again, ready to shoot some more birds.

Today’s observations in Dofbasen from observers in the area

Sum of the Raptors in the area based on observations typed into Dofbasen the same day

But for now, good evening or good night to all of you.

Marion

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Robbe Cool, Hanelie Sidhu, Alice Scalzo, Marion L'Huillier-Hunsinger, Jesper and Mette.