Gulls & a Birthday

Hi all!

Our original plans for today were for Martina, Rita, and Nathan to go ringing at Kabeltromlen, and for myself and Alice to do a seawatch at the tip of Grenen.  Early this morning however, Martina awoke to find rain on the forecast, so ringing had to be cancelled.  Nonetheless, Martina joined me to conduct the seawatch at 4:45.  Compared to the past few days, it was fairly slow.  Foggy conditons overnight likely inhibited most nocturnal migrations, so migratory waders / shorebirds were essentially absent, save for a single Dunlin (Almindelig Ryle), looking stunning in breeding or alternate plumage high up on the beach.  In the first hour of the seawatch, I was able to spot a handful of Northern Fulmars (Mallemuk) distantly arcing over the horizon, simply silhouettes in the intense amber glow of the sunrise. 

A beautiful sunrise from Grenen

Northern Gannet (Sule) numbers were also fairly high, I tallied at least 160 at most, our highest count from the past few days.  Though the offshore realm wasn't at its most active, after the seawatch I spent an hour combing through the mixed gull flocks on the beaches at Grenen searching for color-ringed gulls.  Ultimately, I was able to succesfully read the codes on 6 birds' (2 Great black-backed gulls (Svartbag) and 4 Lesser black-backed gulls (Sildemåge) ) color rings.  We will have to wait a bit until we receive the data from the lessers' rings, but we were able to learn that while one of the great black-backs has remained around northern Denmark its whole life (as far as we can tell), the other was originally ringed in Norway, and has journeyed at least as far as the Netherlands in the past few years!

One of the color-ringed lesser black-backed gulls (Sildemåge) observed today.

While Martina and I seawatched, the others slept in to 6 am or so (that's sleeping in for our standards), and did some work repairing torn mist nets, among other things.  In the afternoon, Simon lead a ringing tour for a large group of tourists in the lighthouse garden.  One Greater Whitethroat (Tornsanger) was caught, and hopefully provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate to the public the importance of the ringing we conduct here at Skagen Fuglestation.  Soon after the tour, Simon for left for his road trip to Norway: we wish him a wonderful adventure!

The highlight of today was unequivocally celebrating the birthday of Alice, who has been here at Skagen Fuglestation since March!  Before he left, Simon lead us in a Danish birthday song to celebrate Alice.  I can't say the rest of us understood the words we were singing, but it was fun nonetheless!  In the evening, we went to beach for a while, where we played a fun bowling-like game (shamefully, Martina & Rita absolutely obliterated Alice, Nathan, and I's team), and enjoyed a dinner picnic.  Nathan went for a quick swim in the Kattegat, but apparently the water was underwhelmingly not cold.  And, as always, we paid attention to the feathered beasts that surround us, and got to see a juvenile Black Guillemot (Tejst) floating offshore.

Again, we wish Alice the happiest of birthdays, and are so happy to work with her here at Skagen!

Cheers!

Max

Local Observations of the Day in DOFBasen

People: Rita DeLucco, Alice Scalzo, Nathan Delmas, Max Laubstein, Martina Hillbrand, and our guests Iben and Olivia.