Battle of the Towers and a Sandhill Crane

Who can see the most species in one day from one spot?

To find out we moved to World's End 1 early in the morning to do our daily count and also the Tower Battle with a nice group of 10 Birders. The goal was to see as many species as possible from our spot without moving somewhere else. The morning started early with a singing White-spotted Bluethroat (Sydlig Blåhals) which made the fitting soundtrack to the calm weather and the nice sunrise. It did not take long until the first Pallid Harrier (Steppehøg) passed by and headed out to sea towards Sweden. During the morning we saw 4 young birds (2nd cy) and one adult male. Otherwise two Montague's Harriers (Hædehøg) flew out and even with fewer birds over sea than yesterday the species list added up bird by bird. Nice arrivals like Sedge Warbler (Sivsanger) were very welcomed by us. At noon the Battle of the Towers was finished with a great total of 105 species - just 4 under the highscore, which was set up in Skagen.

The ringers also participated in the Battle of the Towers and gave their very best to get new songbird species for us. The best catch of the day was definitely the third Wood Warbler (Skovsanger) of the year! It is such a beautiful species and I've still not seen one in hand (you will read in a second why I was not at KAB at that point). Hopefully that will change soon.

When the message came, that there is a Sandhill Crane nearby in Jerup, we got really excited. Luckily Jan offered to take Hanelie and me with him (tak!!), so we quickly left and started our small twitch. When we arrived the Sandhill Crane (Prærietrane) was foraging in mid distance on a field together with Common Cranes (Trane). What a beautiful bird!!! Since it was a new species for Hanelie and me and we had great company with Jan, the mood was awesome. Some Corn Buntings (Bomlærke - why do danish people call this Bunting a Lark?) were nice to see and we heared our first Cuckoo (Gøg) of the year. 

Luckily for my sleep bilance, I decided to take a nap in the afternoon. This is a risk, because you can miss some birds but thanks to Zello we are always alert if there are really good birds around. Since some clouds came and slowed down the migration, there were not many birds to miss. So we could go over to deal with the administrative tasks, we did not have any time for yesterday. 

Tomorrow Hanelie will leave. It was really nice to have her as a hard working volunteer, keen birder and friend. To fill this hole, Séan will join our team for the rest of the season. I met him in my first week of stay here last summer (in end of july) and it was a fun time, so I'm really looking forward to meet him again.

Ringing (Kabeltromlekrattet):

Total: 42

Not just us, but also Michael ringed today. Those are his numbers:

Ringing (Nordstjernevej):

Total: 3

Ringing (Jennes Sø):

Total: 11

Todays observations from observers in the area.

Sum of the raptors in the area based on observations typed into Dofbasen the same day

People: Hayley Land, Isis Khalil, Hanelie Sidhu, Magnus Houen Lauritsen, Simon Kiesé, Lisa Vergin, Michael Anker, Troels Eske Ortvad, Mads Bunch, Simon S. Christiansen, Jørgen Hulbæk, Hendrik and our guests Dorte and Anders Østerby