Birds everywhere

Today we finally went ringing again after two days of not being able to go because of weather conditions. It was a very calm day regarding the weather and in the first few hours we had more birds than what we were used to in the past week or two. Migration has not really started yet for most birds, however, we are catching more and more juvenile birds which either have hatched in the area (true mostly for common whitethroats, tornsanger and chiffchaff, gransanger) or close by and which are now exploring the wider surroundings of their birth place (e.g. blue and great tits; blåmejse og musvit; or blackcaps, munk). Talking about blackcaps, we caught our first juvenile today and we are waiting for more.

Of course, all the juvenile whitethroats we get (and quite a few are recaptures so they don't even show up in the ringing totals below) provide a lot of valuable data, for example on how long they stay in the area before they leave and if we are lucky also, whether they come back next year. But they do get a little boring after a while, so we were extremely pleased to find a very special bird in one of the nets this morning: a green sandpiper (svaleklire).

It was a juvenile that must be making its first southwards migration since they do not breed in the area. The birds that we get here breed mainly in Sweden and Norway and they start their migration a little earlier than songbirds do. I assume this is mother nature’s way of making sure that bird watchers always have something to get excited about, no matter what time of the year.

While the rest of us was at the ringing, Nathan and Rita went with Knud (who gets credits for the photos below) to World’s End 3 to do some seawatching. They also had a large variety of birds including a puffin (lunde), a dozen bar-tailed godwits (lille kobbersnebbe), a ruddy turnstone (stenvender) and a lot of common terns (fjordterne). They also managed to read a color-ringed kittiwake (the same we read last weekend) and a sandwich tern (splitterne).

On the down side, they had to deal with visitors who left their dog roam freely among the roosting birds which is forbidden on Grenen Beach between April and October for the protection of the birds. Seeing that the chicks of the common ringed plovers (stor præstekrave) are not able to fly yet, they may have just escaped their death because of Nathan’s and Rita’s interference. So, if you want to take your dog to the beach, please keep it on a leash so that the birds can breed and rest in peace on the beach!

While we were out in the morning, Lærke left but not before making sure she had our contact details to send us the video she is making about the ringing, once it is finished. We are very excited to see it and hope Lærke will get into the university program she applied to so she will be close to Skagen and can visit more often! Mark and Malthe are staying until Sunday, which is good, since Mark is trying to get our fancy bat detector up and running for migration season.

In the afternoon we had a session with Simon where we talked about moult and aging birds. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening making sure all the data is up to date. And we ate a nice dinner in order to load our batteries for the migration season to come!

Birds ringed at Kabeltrommeln:

Green sandpiper (svaleklire) 1

Song thrush (sangdrossel) 1

Blackbird (solsort) 1

Lesser Whitehtroat (gærdesanger) 2

Common Whitethroat (tornsanger) 21

Blackcap (munk) 2

Icterine warbler (gulbug) 1

Chiffchaff (gransanger) 5

Great tit (musvit) 2

Blue tit (blåmejse) 1

Reed bunting (rørspruv) 1

Total: 38

Local observations of the day in DOFBasen

People at the station: People at the Station: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Simon S. Christiansen, Martina Hillbrand, Knud Pedersen, and our guests Mark, Malthe and Lærke Desholm