Battle of the Towers

Today was a day we at the station have been waiting for. The Battle of the Towers. A semi-formal competition between the different Scandinavian bird observatories to do a “big sit” every year on May 3rd. The observers headed out to Worlds End 1 earlier than normal to meet Simon and Lars for the 5:00 AM start time. Meanwhile, Tue and I decided that the first hour of ringing would be too windy to justify having the nets open, so we opted to wait an hour. 

The Battle of the Tours commenced at precisely 5 AM with the first bird being a singing Reed Bunting (Rørspurv). Over the next 8 hours the observers tallied 81 species. While this is not a high count by any means, it was quite an impressive count given the extreme westerly winds. The best species of the day were Black Redstart (Husrødstjert), Peregrine Falcon (Vandrefalk) and many Fulmars (Mallemuk). 

During the ringing, Tue and I had a nice relatively productive morning with decent numbers of Willow Warblers (Løvsanger) and a nice male European Bullfinch (Dompap). We were also joined by a tour group of the local college professors which Simon brought over to us. 

 After the ringing was complete at the nets closed, Tue and I wandered up to Worlds End to get some of the Kanelstang that Jørgen Hulbæk brought us. Thank you once again Uncle Jørgen!

Shortly thereafter; Simon, Tue and I made a quick trip down to the Sandworm track ams relocated the Flavissima Yellow Wagtail. A very nice look which got some nice looks. 

Between 5am. - 1 pm a total of 81 species were seen by the team at The Battle of the Towers. Will hopefully be enough to be in top of the competition in Denmark at least.

In the afternoon, the wind picked up drastically beyond what it was in the morning. We spent the afternoon cleaning and completing data for the last several days.

Tomorrow will be very windy and we will not be able to ring, but we look forward to our observations! You never know what you’re going to find. 

And so, another day passes at Skagen Fuglestation. What will tomorrow bring? We will have to wait and see!

Highlights:

Flavissima Yellow Wagtail 1 (Gulvipstjert)

Battle of the Tours! 

Ringing:

Kabeltromelen:

Rødstjert 1

Løvsanger 9

Munk 5

Dompap 1

Tornsanger 2

Total: 18

Raptor Migration in Skagen Today

Today’s observations in Dofbasen from observers in the area

People: Lucas Corneliussen, Tue Baaner, Cora Köberle, Andrew Jacobs, Olli Lilja, Simon Sigaard Christiansen, Lars Grøn, Gunnar Simonsen, Jørgen Hulbæk Christensen, Anton Kvarnbäck.