Red-throated or Red-footed?

Many birds have red in their plumage. Some of them on their head, some on their wings. Other ones have a red body and even other birds have a red tail. For some of those birds the red body part is used to give it a simple and hopefully never misleading name. Two of those lucky birds made our day today.

It was a sunny morning buøgt the increasing southeasterly wind (which was very welcomed by us bird lovers) made it feel comfortable today. It took some time until the air heated up and gave us the feeling of summer again. Even if there was more migration than the last days, it was still slow. Luckily, there was a nice variety of species. Two Great Nothern Divers (Islom) flew over and a young Pallid Harrier (Steppehøg).

Then I heard some familiar calls and directly shouted "Red-thorated Pipit" (Rødstrubet Piber)!! It called a few more times and Magnus seemed to be alredy really happy, since it was a new species for him. Finally, we found the flying bird in the air and saw it landing behind some grass. Afterwards it was foraging with Yellow Wagtails (Gul Vipstjert). What a nice bird, the first one I could take pictures of:

In the meanwhile, ringing was better than the previous days but the highlights were missing. Finally, the ringers got reawarded with a nice Wood Warbler (Skovsanger). This yellow bird really contrasted to the less yellow Willow Warblers - especially to one completely grey one - probably ssp. acredula.

Simon Sr. had a tour for a school class, so we set up a new net to catch more birds in the old lighthouse garden. Unfortunately, there were no birds to ring in the bright sunshine. Thanks to Simon Srs engagement, this kids still had fun.

In the afternoon, Mira and I went to the Black Summerhouse to look for raptors. It was really fun and we had the second bird, which is named after its red on its body. Red-footed Falcon (Aftenfalk)! Three different birds (M ad, M 2k, F 2k) came by super close and gave us nice views. 

The wind brought good birds to Skagen and we look back on good birds we have seen. Unfortunately, there is no way to see all the nice birds, since you can not be everywhere at the same time. But that's okay. Sometimes it is hard to accept, that there were good birds, you could not see. That's part of the game. Luckily, there are still enough nice birds for everyone of us and many more to come. Fingers crossed that the next days continue like this!

Today’s observations in Dofbasen from observers in the area.

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

People: Séan Walsh, Hayley Land, Isis Khalil, Magnus Houen Lauritsen, Simon Kiesé, Simon S. Christiansen, Mira Kieckbusch, Karen Marie Holk