Over a thousand Scoters

After a nice evening yesterday with a lunar eclipse that we saw from Det Grå Fyr, it was an early morning the next day. I (Gabriel) and Sarah opened the ringing nets just before 06:00 this morning. Just before the first round of netting Selina joined and shortly afterwards Morten Jenrich Hansen also came and helped with the ringing. Morten was very nice and helpful in the ringing. Among other things, he told us about his first years at Skagen Fuglestation and showed us how to sex the Coal Tits (Sortmejser) that we caught today. Like yesterday, we also caught a Great Spotted Woodpecker (Stor Flagspætte). It was unmarked and had been caught in exactly the same net and in exactly the same place in the net as yesterday's Great Spotted Woodpecker (Stor Flagspætte).

 

The migration count was done by Florian, Janna and Barbara. Today they had fewer migrating passerines than the previous days, but the migration of Common Scoter (Sortand) and Velvet Scoter (Flojlsand) was all the better. In total they had 1317 migrating Common Scoters (Sortander) and 174 migrating Velvet Scoter (Flojlsander). Other cool species they had were an Osprey (Fiskeørn), a Great Egret (Sølvhejre) and a Merlin (Dværgfalk).

 

We came back after the ringing around 12 noon, met Florian, Janna and Barbara who were sitting in the kitchen having lunch. Morten had brought home-grown vegetables from his garden as a gift (Thanks Morten!). Barbara and Sarah later went to the grocery store and shopped for the week's meals.

 

Lisa and Simon are in their family's summerhouse on the West Coast but joined Johan Funder last night for some Great Snipe (Tredækker) ringing in Store Vildmose. They succeeded with cathing one Great Snipe plus another one seen. Beside that four Common Snipes (Dobbeltbekkasin), one Meadow Pipit (Engpiber) and 20 Skylarks were caught.

 

Towards the evening Barbara had made us some really good hamburgers for dinner. I (Gabriel), Sarah, Florian and Janna then went up to the lighthouse and enjoyed the view during dusk.