Shearwater’s day

Yesterday has been a very exciting day, for all of us! Both ringing and observing have been very successful. I went ringing with Hanelie and Simon and we caught 71 birds and also caught 5 birds which have been previously ringed: recaptures are always super interesting, also if the birds were ringed in the same ringing station. Between the 76 birds checked today there was a super cute group of 8 Long-tailed tits (Halemejse; picture above); one of them was a recapture, and me and Solenn discovered that the bird was ringed by Skagen Fuglestation in Kabletromle in June!

Today we saw 14 different species of bird at the ringing table and it has been very didactic for me and Hanelie: for the last rounds also Solenn and Frank joined us. They were very happy about their morning: at Grenen they saw hundreds of Fulmars (Mallemuk) and 4 Sooty Shearwater (Sodfarvet skråpe)!
The sea had another (bigger) surprise for the evening: a Scopoli’s Shearwater (Kuhls skråpe)! Me, Hanelie and Johanna ran at the tip to try to see it (at the same moment Simon was seeing it from the lighthouse and he helped us from there to locate the bird). We managed to see it, Hanelie found the bird by herself, when I was running towards Erik Christophersens and Rolf Christensen, two birdwatchers who helped me to find and observe the bird (Erik let me use its scope to observe the bird; thank you very much! In the picture above you can see one of the beautiful pictures he managed to take yesterday while I was there), and it was the first time she observed this species (usually common in Mediterranean sea)!

Picture by: Erik Christophersen

It has been a wonderful day, and, moreover, at the Skagen Observatory arrived two new volunteers: Johanna, who will stay here for two weeks, and Aksel (who will stay until December). Also Esben joined us yesterday, to help us with ringing in the next days.

Ringing totals at Kabeltromle:

Fuglekonge: 10

Gransanger: 17

Halemejse: 8

Traløber: 1

Rødstjert:1

Rødhals: 15

Gærdesmutte: 8

Rørsanger: 1

Gærdesanger: 1

Broget fluesnapper: 1

Munk: 5

Tornsanger: 3

Rørspur: 1

Stor flagspætte: 1

Musvit: 1

Totals: 74

People at the Station: Diana Sciandra, Hanelie Sidhu, Solenn Boucher, Frank Osterberg, Johanna Veentjer, Aksel Munkholm, Simon Christiansen, Lisa Vergin, Esben Hansen 

Today’s Observations from the area on DOFBasen