Puffin drama

Today started with the first real and colorful sunrise of our stay, which was very welcome and made the walk to our migration counting spot ever-so pleasant in contrast to yesterday.

Sunrise

A beautiful day with some clouds that cleared up quickly in the early hours, and some wind that picked up around 10am also brought us some nice birds for our count. The raptors were present for the first time today and we had the pleasure of witnessing several Common Buzzards (Musvåge) and Red Kites (Rød Glente) attempting migration, as well as steady numbers of sea birds including a notable number of Black-legged Kittiwakes (Ride) and a surge of Common Scoters (Sortand) in the last hour which made the counting challenging and extra fun for Alvin who was in charge of their count.

Other surprises for our morning were the migration of 2 European Shags (Topskrav) which gave us the opportunity to train our eyes to the differences in flight style compared to the Great Cormorant (Skarv). Gustav was particularly excited about because getting better at identifying European Shags (Topskrav) in migration was a goal for his trip here with us. Saxe also had a possible sighting of an Atlantic Puffin (Lunde) which was unfortunately too far away to be certain. For two days in a row now we have had sightings of small Auks which could either be a Little Auk (Søkonge) or an Atlantic Puffins (Lunde), but each times too far away to be sure! We hope for a good observation of one of them soon! 

Towards the end of our count Simon paid us a little visit as he was checking the walking path of our ringing site in sight of the upcoming ringing season which will start on 20th of March, and he brought with him the news of seeing the first Common Chiffchaff (Gransanger) and Black Redstart (Husrødstjert) of the season!

Our afternoon arrived quickly as Simon took us to conduct a ‘Beach Count’ where the goal is to survey the mortality of sea birds by taking a walk along the beach and reporting findings of dead sea birds. Our walk was 10km of beautiful sand and stones, which we conducted over 3h30 total. 

Nordstrand

During that time, we were on the lookout for dead sea birds (or parts of them) and we reported all identifiable deaths, as well as picking up a few selected species. Among these are Black-legged Kittiwakes (Ride) which we found today. However not picked up but reported was a ringed Great Cormorant (Skarv), from which we collected the ring and will be reporting it.

This survey project has for aim to track the mortality rate of sea birds and to explore the possible death causes by analyzing collected samples and individuals, which would help track diseases, pollution related harm, environmental related harm, etc.

Beach walk

As you can imagine we were also on the lookout for live birds of the area during that time, and had some great sightings of many Sanderlings (Sandløber), 5 Bar-tailed Godwit (Stor Kobbersneppe), and a great 124 Great Crested Grebes (Toppet Lappedykker).

 Sanderling

A long day spent nearly entirely in the field was a good start of the season!

Link to today’s observations in DOFbasen from observers in the area

People: János Schadl, Alix Bortolussi, Alvin Johannson, Saxe Lind Christiansen, Gustav Juel, Simon S. Christiansen, Knud Pedersen.