Thinking about home

Today’s events have me thinking about the concept of home. This morning, Lisa, Leona and I went just before sunrise to open the nets and ring. While we had the nets open, we caught some wonderful birds, such as an 8 year old Common Whitethroat (Tornsanger) that was originally banded on July 30^th, 2014 in the same area. According to Euring, this is one of the oldest Tornsangers ever documented, with the eldest being a 9 year old bird. Our bird very well may have been making Skagen its summer home for nearly the past decade!

Common Whitethroat(Tornsanger) – Photo Credit: Lisa Vergin

In addition to the exciting Tornsanger record, we also caught a young Crested Tit (Topmejsen) in the nets! During our evening meeting, Simon shared that fledged juvenile Crested Tits will migrate to search for their own territory away from their parents. Once they find that place, they will make that place home for the remainder of their lives. It was very cool to see the distinctive plumage of this bird and to learn about the unique life history!

 

Leona and Lisa with the Topmejsen ‘Crested Tit’ at the ringing area on June 9^th

Furthermore, we had an amazing sightings of an Eurasian bittern (Rørdrum), Caspian Tern (Rovterne), Ring Ouzel (Ringdrossel), merlin (Dværgfalk) and an observation of 60 kittiwakes(Rissa) heading east as they migrated through Skagen.

 Picture of Ring Ouzel (Ringdrossel) – Photo Credit: Simon S. Christiansen

Meanwhile, Hanelie, Alice and Robbe went to Aalborg yesterday to visit Marion, who was a volunteer here earlier in the spring. While they were there, they saw Bearded tits (Skægmejse), reed buntings (Rørspurven), and Penduline tits (Pungmejser) who had made their home in a nest close to Marion’s house. It was also their chance to say a final farewell to Robbe before he headed back towards his home in Belgium!

Back at Skagen Fuglestation, we had an interesting visitor. Our guest Kristine came over to acquire our help in catching a pigeon (Tamdue) on the lawn right outside the laboratory. The pigeon had a band along with a phone number seemingly belonging to its owner. After calling and talking to a few folks, we found the bird’s owner and it will be returning to its home very shortly!

Leona holding the pigeon (Tamdue) – Photo Credit: Kristine Kleffel

Tomorrow, we are looking forward to another day of ringing and of visiting the cormorant (Skarver) colony! The video technicians are planning to come tomorrow to fix the video camera on the colony as well. In the near future, we are looking forward to hopefully ringing some Nightjars (Natravne) in the area.

As we shared a lovely homemade meal concocted by our guests, we talked about our adventures and about Jørgen’s upcoming journey back to Copenhagen. We are so very grateful to have friendly bird watchers like Jørgen with us for the past couple of months. As they start to head back home towards the end of this spring season, we are hopeful for their return with the next migration and that they will always consider Skagen their home away from home!

Birds ringed at Kabletromle

Topmejse: 1

Gærdesmutte: 1

Gærdesanger: 1

Rørsanger: 2

Kærsanger: 5

Tornsanger:  3

Bogfinke: 4

Havesanger: 3

Munk: 9

Løvsanger: 1

Rødhals: 2

Gransanger: 1

Total: 33

Observations of the day in DOFbasn from observers in the area

People at the station: Simon S. Christiansen, Hanelie Sidhu, Alice Scalzo, Leona Gottschalkson, Megan Nepshinsky, Lisa Vergin, Jørgen Hulbæk, Jan Speiermann, our guests Jan Hjort Christensen and Kristine Kleffel