Kategori 1 Varsel

After a cozy family movie night last night while the storm raged outside (we saw Howl’s Moving Castle—a fantastic film!), we all had a delicious lie-in this morning as it was still too stormy for the migration count. We had a nice lazy breakfast together, said goodbye to Otto, and then cleaned up the flat before lunch.

All of us went up the lighthouse tower together around midday to play in the wind and see if we can see some birds. It was windy and a little wet, but had already calmed down quite a bit from the morning. There were even the brave marathon runners out, who we cheered on from the tower but most of them couldn’t hear us over the wind.

Today was also EuroBirdwatch day! Organised by BirdLife International, this is a day for everyone in Europe to go out and count migrants, to raise awareness for migratory birds and their habitats, and to create a full-continent picture of European bird migration. Although we could not do our standardized count this morning, the five us still went out in the afternoon to record migrants. We split up after lunch; Amira, Miles and I walked down to Grenen while Florian and Gabriel carried their scopes up to the lighthouse tower to count from the small bit of shelter on one side of the glass (where they dilignetly counted 2,800 Scoters (Sortand)). Then Miles walked to Nordstrand where he saw a short-eared owl (Mosehornugle)! Although he called it out straight away, Amira and I couldn’t see it from where we stood at Kabeltromlen.

Hyperopolus lanceolatus (identified by Lille Simon)

Dedicated observer counting Sortand

We walked to Ellekrattet to search for some passerines, where we ran into Florian and Gabriel who had tired of standing on the tower in the wind. They had just spotted a great grey shrike (Stor tornskade), which we followed but also failed to see. Alas, we missed the most exciting birds today, but we still saw plenty to be happy about. Great grey shrikes are famous for their habit of impaling their killed prey on thorns for safekeeping, which is also the origin of the Latin genus name, Lanius, meaning butcher or executioner. Shrikes were featured across Medieval  British and Scandinavian folklore, known in various dialects as “suffocating angels” or “poison angels,” and the thorns that held their prey were avoided as poisonous.

In other bird news, after much analysis and consulting of our team of international experts, Florian is able to confirm that his sound recording from yesterday is from a Little Bunting (Dværgværling)! Very exciting news for us, although we were not able to lay eyes on it (yet).

After returning home cold and tired, we now compile our observations from today and look forward to a tasty pie that Miles is cooking.

Today's observations from the area can be seen here. 

People: Gabriel Axelsson, Florian Hatt, Sarah Partridge, Amira Nuseibeh, Miles Scheuering,  Michael Ancher, Simon S. Christiansen.