A Stonechat and more cake!

Mara, Miles and I had a really lovely morning ringing at Kabeltromlen today. The sun was shining and, despite not as many birds as usual, we had an impressive variety of species, 16 in total! The highlight for me was definitely a Stonechat (Sortstrubert Bynkefugl) in the first net round; it was such a round and cute juvenile female bird! It’s also always a good day when we catch a flock of Long-tailed Tit (Halemejse)! Simon passed by for a few hours with the group from his nature education course this week, so it was great to be able to show them how we ring the birds.

Stonechat (Sortstrubert Bynkefugl) - a young female (Photo by Mara)

The observers had a much more intense (but still lovely) morning, especially Sarah who was tasked with counting the Auks (Lomvie/Alk). She had to concentrate extremely hard but was rewarded with a count of 2032 flying past in the 4 hours of observations! A group of Snow Buntings (Snespurv) sitting on the beach was also a real treat and meant they could look through the scope to study and appreciate them fully!

Once we got back to the lighthouse, we (Miles, Sarah and I) went for a fun little run to Jennes Sø and around the heathland in that area. During our run, it was a coincidence that we bumped into Michael Ancher on his cycle home from Jennes Sø where he’d been ringing today. The run was great because it warmed us up ready for our swim in the sea, where we were also joined by Florian and our guest Jesper too. I was very happy when a Razorbill (Alk) came swimming up to us; it kept diving down under and then popping back up closer to us which was exciting to watch!

Sunset from the top of the lighthouse

We then all settled down on the sofa for some data entry for the rest of the afternoon. I went up to the top of the lighthouse to watch the sunset and a few minutes later Sarah joined me. She appeared and said she could hear medieval folk tunes playing through the lighthouse speakers along with the usual bird song recordings. In reality, it was just me up there playing some tunes on the recorder, but maybe this kind of music would make the walk up all those steps more entertaining and atmospheric!

We all enjoyed a lovely stir fry dinner cooked by Miles, and he even made dessert, the most chocolatey chocolate cake ever, decorated with a Bearded Reedling (Skægmejse) created with powdered sugar. What a feast!

Chocolate cake baked by Miles and decorated by Sarah

Ringing (Kabeltromlen):

Ringing (Jennes Sø):

Highlights from World’s End 3:

Today’s observations from the area can be found here

People: Mara Glane, Florian Hatt, Sarah Partridge, Amira Nuseibeh, Miles Scheuering, Michael Ancher, Simon S. Christiansen, and our guests Mette and Jesper.