Windy weather, a letter from France and a gull from Spain

When we got up this morning it was very rainy and windy, so we were unable to do the regular ringing and observing program and had to wait for the weather. When the skies cleared Søren, Karen-Marie and I went out to the beach at Grenen to see what birds were around. We had the Eurasian Bittern (Rørdrum) fly over the parking lot and once we got out to the beach there were some close Northern Gannets (Sule) and Sandwich Terns (Splitterne) feeding off the tip and Common Ringed Plovers (Stor Præstekrave) running around on the beach with a single Barnacle Goose standing on the beach before flying away.

We decided that with the strong winds there could be some birds sheltering at the harbor, so we went there to check it out and there was around 400-500 gulls which unfortunately mostly flushed when some workers came through the area. We did see a Lesser Black-backed Gull (Sildemåge) with what appeared to be a Spanish ring which was close enough to read. There were also 4 European Herring Gull (Sølvmåge) nests on the roof across from the tip.

Lesser Black-backed Gull (Sildemåge) photo Andrew Jacobs

In the afternoon Cora scratch built a new walk in trap so we now have two to try and catch Northern Wheatears (Stenpikker)  with. Then we walked down to the sandworm track and watched the Common Swifts (Mursejler)  and some other passing birds for a while. After dinner we went to go find some Eurasian Dotterel (Pomeransfugl) that had been reported, and they were out bobbing in and out of muddy ditches in a farm field that we viewed from the road.

Common Swift (Mursejler) photo Andrew Jacobs

We received news on the Common Chiffchaff (Gransanger)  recapture that we had from France on April 29^th. It was originally ringed as a 1k bird on November 5^th, 2024 having a gap of 175 days since it was first ringed and has moved a distance of 1678.8 km on its migration from there. Getting these internationally ringed birds is always great as we collectively get more knowledge on the temporal and spatial movements of the species we work with.

Map of where the Common Chiffchaff (Gransanger) was in France before comig to us in Denmark.

Highlights around Skagen:

Eurasian Dotterel (Pomeransfugl) 8

Glaucous Gull (Gråmage) 1

Colour ringed Lesser Black-backed Gull (Sildemåge) from Spain.

Observations in the area today on Dofbasen

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