Cookie monsters all over the place :-)

Alice and Manuel went to the observation post at World’s End I early in the morning, for a day with sunny weather and warm air to enjoy during the bird counts. Elie Coremans and Joachim Pintens assisted in the counting. All four had lots of Marsh Harriers (Rørhøg) – started with a nice group of 26 Marsh Harriers that flew up from the reeds at 5 in the morning. Also, a Turtle dove (Turteldue) showed up, and some nice Orioles (Piroler).

Oriole (Pirol) (photo by Søren Leth-Nissen)

The raptors really started showing up around 9. Alice also had a little time for drawing at the observation post.

And tonight, Manuel has an important football match. Hamburg plays against Berlin and Hamburg should win! So, fingers crossed.

Robbe worked on the recruitment video and later, he went out with friends Elie and Joachim to the cormorant lake, where they saw many swallows taking insects over the lake.

Leona and Hanne-Lie opened the nets at Kabeltromlen at 4.15. The first round of checking the nets at 4.45 was scarce, but second round gave a lot of birds. Leona was excited to catch the Sedge Warbler (Sivsanger) and also enjoyed extracting the Wren (Gærdesmutte) from the net.

Hanne-Lie’s highlight of the morning was the recapture of a bird with a Helgoland ring from Germany. It was an adult Blackbird. Julie joined the ringing at little later, and together with Simon, she, Leona and Hanne-Lie ringed 36 birds in total, among them two Tree pipits (Skovpiber). Simon’s high lights of the day was the two Golden Orioles, the Golden Eagle (Kongeørn) and the Steppe Eagle, which we saw after closing the nets around 10.30. We had a great view from Kabeltromlen as it bounced at World’s End at turned back over Grenen, just above out heads.

Steppe Eagle (Steppeørn) (photo by Søren Leth-Nissen)

Today we also released the “cookie monsters” at Kabeltromlen, as we sold homebaked cookies made from a secret Birder’s recipe From the Blåvand Bird Observatory :-) We asked the visitors to Kabeltromlen to donate what they wanted in support of the Skagen Bird Observatory – most did by MobilePay, so we’ll know later how the sale went ;-)

Ringing at Kabeltromlen (photo by Søren Leth-Nissen)

Later in the afternoon, when the weather changed into a fog, Alice, Manuel, and Julie entered data. Leona put in the raptor summary for two days, while Hanne-Lie got some sleep in the afternoon.

Søren and I went on a new adventure today, participating in the pilot project on point counting with a recorder at Sardinkrattet and Ellekrattet, at the lake. We found it a great experience to do to the focused counting for five + five minutes at both observation posts, and we look forward to Simon’s evaluation of our performances. After all, we are just happy amateurs in this field.

I also enjoyed being part of the ringing, taking notes of the ringers work with the birds. Søren took a lot of pictures and enjoyed the company of the other visitors at the Kabeltromlen.

We had a very informative lecture on Acrocephalus (a group of Warblers) in the late afternoon, so now (hopefully) we all at the stationknow the differences between Blyth’s and Reed Warbler. Look for the emargination at the primaries :-)

Learning about Reed Warblers (Rørsangere) IS fun (photo by Søren Leth-Nissen)

Greetings from Karen Marie.

PS. And then, while writing the blog, we had an evening adventure, too. Robbe was on his way to town when he saw a Short Eared Owl (Mosehornugle) close to the road. He called us and some of us ran (or walked very fast) to the spot on Fyrvej. Unfortunately, it was chased away by two angry crows. But walking back to the Lighthouse, we crossed the meadow and found three beautiful Windchats (Bynkefugl), two males and a female, sitting in the shrubs. It was Leona's first of the species! And back at the Lighthouse, Søren saw a Wheatear go into the trap and eat all the worms, and right now we are aging it and next we will ring it and it is just all an adventure. As someone tol dme Monday: Everything can happen in Skagen!

People at the station: Simon S. Christiansen, Hanelie Sidhu, Alice Scalzo, Manuel Tacke, Leona Gottschalkson, Robbe Cool, Julie Kokholm, Søren Leth-Nissen and Karen Marie Leth-Nissen, Joachim Pintens, Elie Coremans, John Frikke.