Multiple marsh harriers "Rørhøg" roosting at the tip

Today, it was Simon that woke up the earliest. No later than 2h30, he was awake. Apparently, he fell asleep during the night while waiting until we came back with a cool bird and at that time we were all asleep already. Fortunately, he had some more sleep at home.  Mathilde and I started our day a bit later with a big Danish brunch. We took our time to enjoy the morning and went to the station in the early afternoon. Meanwhile, the others took advantage of the rainy weather and had a quiet morning too. Except for Hanelie. She was, as usual, the first person to wake up and finished her report. Because Simon’s haircut-agenda was too full, she tried to find a hairdresser in the city. Unfortunately, they were also fully booked until the end of April. Now, she has a good excuse to recruit Simon as her personal hairdresser.

Although we were not so active during the morning, there were a lot of people around the lighthouse because today the exhibition opened. Some special guests were present for the opening such as the major, the minister of culture, the director of Birdlife Denmark (Sigrid Anderson) and the chairman of the observatory’s board (Niels Eriksen).

In the afternoon, Alice finished the nocmig and showed Simon the last mystery calls. The biggest surprise was the nocturnal flight calls of common scoters "Sortand".

When Mathilde and I arrived at the station, we immediately joined Simon to work on the raptor project. On our way, we also picked up Hanelie who was totally soaked by the rain. From Sunday on, our raptor project will even be more exciting because a Belgian expert will come to help us with all his knowledge and tools.

In the late afternoon, Manuel arrived at the station. He is a new volunteer from Germany and will stay until halfway through June. He gained a lot of experience in bird migration by joining the count of amazing migration bottlenecks like Eilat (Israel) and Batumi (Georgia). He is currently working for Birdlife Germany, but he decided to spend his holidays in Skagen. After a short introduction to the station and the evening meeting, we went together with Mathilde to world’s end 3. We were really surprised when we looked into the sky because it was full of passerines and raptors. Surprisingly, there were no buzzards but at least 2 ospreys "fiskeørn" and 11 marsh harriers "Rørhøg". I called them out on Zello and the other girls could see them from the station as well. When we continued our walk, the marsh harriers seemed to search for a roosting place at Grenen.

Once arrived at the station, the dinner prepared by our guests was ready. They spent the whole afternoon buying and preparing food and it was really worth it! Because they are unlucky with the weather during their stay, they decided to go to the art museum in the morning. After dinner, Mathilde and I went to our Airbnb to enjoy our last evening together.

Observations of the day in DOFbasn from observers in the area

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

I hope the spring birds arrive soon!

Robbe

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