A Skarvsøen Kind of Morning!

This morning started earlier than most. At 3 AM the ringers woke up eager to head out for the first time to an actual ring-able morning in 5 days! But this time, rather than going to Kabeltromelen as per usual, we got on our bikes and cycled to north beach in our waders for the inevitable trek to Skarvsøen for CES ringing. After an extreme northern wind period, the forecast showed it would slow to only 5 m/s with gusts up to 12 m/s. A borderline day, which would have been cancelled had it not been the absolute last day of the period for this CES cycle.

That said; Cora, Tue and I arrived at Skarvsøen to open the nets at 04:15 and had all 12 nets open by the right time. Fortunately, none of the nets needed to be seriously retied after the wind period. As the sun came up, we headed out to our first round at 5 am with high hopes. We then only managed to catch a single male blackbird (Solsort). By 5:45, the wind began to pick up dramatically and the nets were getting tossed around a bit which made ringing challenging, however, we persisted. Over the next 5 hours, we only managed to catch a grand total of 9 birds. A total which is very low for this location. We finally caught more than one Reed Warbler (Rørsanger) which was nice and a beautiful Sedge Warbler (Sivsanger) which is a personal favorite. The highlight from Skarvsøen came in the form of wader migration. A nice flock of Temmincks Stints (Temmincksryle) and three Spotted Redshank (Sortklire) dropped by the lake on their migrations as they headd north! Also a good assortment of pipits and wagtails helped pass the time in between 0 rounds, of which we had 4. 

 3k+ Solsort (han)!

On the observation front, the good numbers of swifts (Musjeiler) continued today along with more yellow wagtails (Gul Vipstjert) and lots of Hawfinches (Kernebider). A Rosefinch (Karmindompap), was also documented singing at Grenen this morning, however, the observers were unable to get on it. 

The afternoon was quite slow around the station and had most of us sleeping the afternoon away to catch up on the much needed sleep of 8 hours of ringing at Skarvsøen. We did, however, welcome back guests Søren & Anne-Marie Leth Nissen. 

Some late celebrations for the May 10 Bird Race!

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

Ringing: CES

Solsort 1

Gærdesanger 1

Rørsanger 5

Munk 1

Sivsanger 1

Total: 9

Highlights: 

Sortklire 3

Temminksryle 9

Karmindompap 1

Today’s observations in Dofbasen from observers in the area

People: Lucas Corneliussen, Cora Köberle, Tue Baaner, Rasmus Mattiesen-Juhl, Andrew Jacobs, Simon S. Christiansen, Karin Christiansen, Søren & Karen-Marie Leth Nissen.