A Windy Morning with a Great Skua

My first blog post and my first time volunteering at Skagen Fuglestation!

It is great to be here and I have already met a lot of awesome people who are teaching me so much: Sarah, Janna, Simon, Simon Jr., and Youri. There is a lovely community, including our guests Helle and Johan, and local birders who often join and help out.

Not an hour goes by without learning something new about birds, moult limits, moths, handling nets, night catching etc. I am also learning that sleep is a smaller part of life here, but who wants to sleep when you can watch birds. I have ringed my first bird ever which was a strong young House Sparrow (Gråspurv)!

Today we woke up to some windy conditions which meant that we had to skip ringing. This gave us an extra hour of sleep before we went to do observations at World’s End 3, in front of a beautiful sunrise. It was my first time doing migration count, and Janna and Sarah were great in introducing me, and luckily we were joined by Knud (thanks for spotting birds and counting the many gulls!) and Ole as well.


Janna and Sarah counting Northern Gannets (Sule) and Common Scoters (Sortand) in the morning sun

A very exciting bird today was a Great Skua (Storkjove), the first one for me, and I even spotted it myself! Besides that, some honourable mentions from the day are Caspian Gull (Kaspisk Måge), Velvet Scoter (Fløjlsand), Black Guillemot (Tejst), Tufted Duck (Troldand), and Sandormen (the bus that takes people to Grenen) that almost got stuck in the sand. Two migrating Wood Pigeons (Ringdue) flying along the shore were a cute sight. We also enjoyed a couple of Swifts (Mursejler) who still haven’t moved south yet. Whenever we see swifts these days, Janna bids them farewell, wondering if these might be the last of the year. Maybe these two were.

People walking or taking Sandormen to the tip (when Sandormen gets stuck it is definitely faster to walk!)

In the afternoon, Florian and Gabriel moved in, and Barbara will arrive in the evening, so there’s a lot of activity at the station again!

We are going to try to catch Storm Petrels (Stormsvaler) tonight, and hopefully Gabriel, Florian, and Barbara brought some luck with them and we can make up for the empty nets a few nights ago.

But now the smell of Sarah’s cooking is filling the air - time for dinner!

Highlights from World’s End 3:

Storkjove

Kaspisk Måge

Fløjlsand

Tejst

Mursejler

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

People:
Barbara Leone, Gabriel Axelsson, Florian Hatt, Selina Veng, Janna Ouedraogo, Sarah Partridge, Simon S. Christiansen, Knud Pedersen, Ole and our guests Helle and Johan.