A Nightjar in the old lighthouse garden

The beach at dawn. Picture: Andrew Jacobs

The day started even earlier than usual at that time of the year. The evening before we had set up nets for Nightjars “Natraven” in the old lighthouse garden and nets for tern and waders at the beach. Andrew and Emma took the night watch and at 01:15 I got a call from Andrew that they had caught a Nightjar “Natraven”! I got up immediately, and Cora too had heard the call. We met the others down in the lab and processed the bird.

2K+ female Nightjar "Natravn". Picture: Andrew Jacobs.

After it got released, I laid down for a bit until it was time to take down the nets. After Andrew and I had out all the poles, ropes, pegs and nets in the lab I grabbed the ringing bags and Cora and I went to Kabeltromle to open the nets. Pauline joined for the first round, and we got some nice birds, 26 new in total. Pauline was very happy about a juvenile Crested Tit “Topmejse”, Cora got to ring a Spotted Flycatcher “Grå Fluesnapper”, we did not have that species for a while. I had a juvenile Lesser Whitethroat “Gærdesanger”, that did not think of flying off when I wanted to release it. The bird was fine, and it was quite cute but a bit unpractical to have a bird sitting on my hand when I needed to check the nest one. So it could sit a little on Coras hand and we released the nest bird, a Common Whitethroat “Tornsanger” right next to it, maybe the Lesser Whitethroat “Gærdesanger” would also fly. It did not but it seemed to remember that it was a wild bird, it called and a little later it flew of from my hand, where it had been sitting again. A juvenile Blue Tit “Blåmejse” was also nice and a recapture of a Reed Bunting “Rørspurv”. We had some Cruise ship guests visiting as at Kabeltromle, Andrew was their tour guide today. We saw in total seven Honey Buzzards from Kabeltromle. Andrew and the Cruise guests also so the flock of six. They also had a White-tailed eagle “Havørn”.

Ringing totals KAB
Tornsanger 15
Munk 1
Blåmejse 1
Grå Fluesnapper 1
Gærdesanger 2
Topmejse 1
Rørsanger 1
Gransanger 4
Total 26

Ringing  old lighthouse garden

Natravn 1

Highlights

Natravn

Hvepsevåge

Havørn

Grå Fluesnapper

Back at the station we met Simon, Cora and I had a swim, we had lunch and did some data work. After, we had a meeting with Simon. Cora, Emma and Malte left to count the last orchids while I could finally have a nap. When I woke up, I went to the lab to clean the fridge. After we started preparing dinner, we had a barbeque tonight all together with bread on the stick. It was a very nice evening. We ended it by climbing the lighthouse and looking down at evening Skagen and some gulls flying to the harbor to sleep.

Stick breaad over the fire. Picture: Mark Desholm.

At the station: Knud and Inge Pedersen, Cora Kørbele, Pauline Næhring, Simon S. Christiansen, Hanelie Sidhu, Emma Fabre, Andrew Jacobs.