Discovering the observatory: my first days

Hello everybody!

I am experiencing my first days here at the observatory, and I already had some wonderful experiences.

Tonight Solenn and Frank went night catching, but it wasn’t a very productive night for birds. They observed instead other very cool things at the beach like many seals resting and bioluminescent algae.

In the morning sadly we had to say goodbye to Elena, which returned at home, in Austria.

Today I went observing birds with Max in Grenen and I saw my first Velvet Scoters (Fløjlsand)! They are quite elegant birds and in this period it is possible to see some flocks migrating towards South, often paired with some Common Scoters (Sortand), which are migrating too (we observed approximately 200 of them). It is possible to recognize the two species from afar just observing if there is a white window on the wings: when lacking you are observing a Common Scoter.

The males of Velvet Scoter especially have a very bright white window which catches the eye immediately.

In the sea we observed as well a Brant Goose (Knortegås), Gannets (Sule) and other seabirds. At the beach we were able to read three rings on gulls despite the tricky wind. One of these was quite interesting: a black ring on a Great Black-backed Gull (Svartbag), which we discovered in the afternoon it was put when the individual was a chick and it was ringed in Norway in 2014. Reading colored rings on birds always excites me, because you can learn some wonderful stories sending the data and receiving the info back; you just need a little bit of patience and a good telescope!

The afternoon has been very cool too: we had a fantastic dinner at the Blink restaurant with the community of people who work near the lighthouse. I had the opportunity to begin to know the people which will become my neighbors and family for the next months.

People: Max Laubstein, Frank Osterberg, Hanelie Sidhu, Elena Turac, Solenn Boucher, Diana Sciandra

Local observations of the day in DOFBasen