Great shit

We once again witnessed a beautiful sunrise when we walked to Grenen in the morning. There was very little wind, and the sun was shining all day.

János and Alvin on the way to the migration count site.

The first great bird was spotted by Saxe already before the official start of the migration count, with a Puffin (Lunde) migrating west. Unfortunately, still leaving some of us without good views of the species. After a while the resting Gulls on the beach flushed, and I spotted the Iceland Gull from yesterday in the huge flock. We ran down to the beach, just in time to have the bird fly directly over our heads. After the rather distant views yesterday, this was highly appreciated. Later we could also observe the bird roosting on the beach.

Icelandgull (Hvidvinget Måge)) flying over our heads.

After the first hour, Simon visited us with a group of students at Grenen. They will be back in two weeks to collect data on the disturbance of the Gulls resting on the beach, which are unfortunately regularly flushed by the many tourists visiting the northernmost point of Denmark. Hopefully we can use the data as an argument to set up a protected area on the beach to give the birds the needed rest.

It was also the first day with good raptor migration, with over 50 Common Buzzards (Musvåge) during the morning and many more in the afternoon. A Shag (Topskarv) and two Caspian Gulls were also nice (Kaspisk Måge).

Common Buzzard (Musvåge) over Grenen.

After the count we walked back and had lunch before we biked to Mikkael Ankers place to join him in the ringing in his Garden. We caught about twenty Great and Blue Tits (Musvit and Blåmejse). It was the first bird we ringed since the start of our stay at the Fuglestation, and for Gustav and Saxe it was one of their first overall. The birds literally gave a shit though…

Great Tit (Musvit) taking a shit on Alix hand.

During all of this, Buzzards (Musvåge) were flying over our heads, sometimes in groups of up to twenty birds. We later tried to catch and ring the Black Redstart (Husrødstjert), which has been hanging around in the Lighthouse garden for the past few days, but again without success. Tomorrow we will make a trip south of Skagen, where we will try to ring a Dipper (Vandstær) and are very much looking forward to this.

Ringing (Nordstjernevej)

Highlights of today:

Iceland Gull (Hvidvinget Måge) – 1

Puffin (Lunde) – 1

Shag (Topskarv)- 1

Black Guillemot (Tejst) - 1

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, Michael Ancher