Rainy birthday

Today was our last migration count as a group of five birders for a little while, as Saxe and Gustav went on their way home in the afternoon. Having really liked their stay here they would like to come back in April or May of this year. We’re looking forward to having them amongst the team again!

The first hour of migration counting started out decently with some nice Auks (Alk), 4 Black Guillemots (Tejst) and some Red Throated Divers (Rødstrubet Lom). A couple of Woodlark (Hedelærke) were also spotted. The next hours slowed down drastically and with the arrival of rain we decided to end the count one hour early. We also discovered that under some sand dunes at Grenen, is in fact a snow dune! Quite a special sight!

Alix digging for the snow under the sand dune

In the afternoon all of us were feeling the fatigue rebound from yesterday's White-Throated Dippers (Vandstær) experience and adrenaline, so we took a quieter afternoon. Simon was around with us for a couple of hours and we had a look at some methods to conduct the raptor migration summaries; we also took advantage of his presence to set up a couple of Rock Pipit (Skærpiber) traps just outside the lighthouse, but without success, even though we had seen at least two individuals around for the past days in this area.

Today is also Alvin’s birthday, so we baked a cake and celebrated him. Happy birthday Alvin!

 Jànos and Alvin with the cake

Tonight we have plans of trying for the first night catching session of the year, which we are all very excited about. We hope for some Jack Snipes (Enkeltbekkasin) or Woodcocks (Skovsneppe) mainly. Tune in to tomorrow's blog to hear about how it went!

Ringing (Nordstjernevej)
Musvit (great tit) - 2
Blåmejse (blue tit) - 5
Jernspurv (dunnock) - 1

Total: 8

Highlights of today:
Black Guillemots (Tejst) - 4
Woodlark (Hedelærke) - 2

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

People: Alvin Johansson, János Schadl, Alix Bortolussi, Saxe Lind Christiansen, Gustav Juel, Simon S. Christiansen, Michael Ancher.