Gulls' Night Out

Hi all!

The events of today's blog actually begin in the late hours of last night, when we drove to Jerup ~30 km south of Skagen, to attempt night-catching some nocturnal species in a field. Unfortunately, after several hours of waiting for something to end up in one of our nets/traps, we had not succeeded. Thankfully, in anticipation of a strikeout, we had brought the nets and lights necessary to attempt night-catching of shorebirds/waders at the nearby Jerup Strand. Conditions weren't ideal, and we are still quite early for shorebird migration to be in full swing. While night-catching, we use the Fuglestation's quite-fancy thermal monocular to spot birds roosting on the beach/mudflats in the darkness, approach them with a bright flashlight, before swiftly netting them. But, at these high latitudes, while the sun sets, it doesn't set very "deep," per se. At its deepest, the sun's light still creeps over the horizon, so we experience a sort of perennial twilight through the night. This confounds our ability to efficiently sneak up on the birds out of total darkness. As Lisa and I (we were the only ones with proper waterproof footwear) roamed the mudflats, we encountered a few fairly-large groups of Dunlin "Almindelig Ryle," but they all flew off before we could get close enough to attempt a catch. Nevertheless, we persisted, and ultimately suceeded in catching a young black-headed gull "Hættemåge" and two young common ringed plovers "Stor Præstekrave." Rita, Nathan, and I each ringed one of the birds, with the assistance of Lisa and Simon, providing our first experience using steel rings, which are used for most waterbirds, as opposed to the aluminium rings we ring most terrestrial species with. Steel rings can be quite difficult to close properly, as they are less malleable and need to "click" shut properly. 

Ringed Plover Chick

Those of us who spent last night night-catching spent much of this morning sleeping in.  Conditons were far too windy for any ringing to happen today, so we completed some data entry, checking, and other tasks around the station.  In the afternoon, Martina, Rita, and Nathan went to "Cormorant Lake" to survey the cormorant "Skarv" breeding colony there.

Survey Cormorant Lake

We had our evening meeting together with our guests Mark, Lærke, and Malthe, and later Alice cooked us a lovely dinner.

Cheers!

Max

Ringing at Jerup Strand:

Black-headed gull "Hættemåge" - 1

Common ringed plover "Stor Præstekrave" - 2

Local observations of the day in DOFBasen

People at the Station: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Simon S. Christiansen,Lisa Vergin, Martina Hillbrand, Lars Bo Jacobsen, and our guests Mark, Malthe and Lærke Desholm