Finally lasagna!

It was an early morning again, as I and Dylan prepared to leave for the migration count. We wanted to try a different approach to catch more of the wintering Snowbuntings (Snespurv) and Twites (Bjergirisk) at Grenen. After the past few days, the birds had gotten more and more used to the mist net, and with a bit stronger wind, we decided to bring two walk-in traps with us. We placed the traps on the beach and added some seeds before we climbed the dunes and waited for the start of the migration count. Even though we had an overall slow morning, we still had some nice highlights, like the first Marsh Harrier (Rørhøg) of the spring, a Goshawk (…), Little Gull (Dværgmåge) and a very good number for Black-throated Divers (Sortstrubet Lom) with 11 birds, and more than ten thousand Chaffinches (Bogfinke). We barely saw any Snowbuntings (Snespurv) and Twites (Bjergirisk) though, so no luck with the ringing. In the last hour of the count Erik joined us, which was nice.

Ringing

We walked back over Kabeltromlen to pick up Joey Christiensen and his parents. He will come back in April for four days and had spent the day at the ringing. We had lunch together and showed them the apartment. We are very much looking forward to his visit in April at the station.

The ringing had been quite slow today, with only 8 birds ringed. After the end of the standardized ringing, Julian, Alix and Alvin stayed a bit longer to cut a new net lane. So hopefully this will produce some nice birds this spring.

We all had a quick nap before I and Dylan went out to Nordstrand to finish the Waterbird count. After counting over 180 resting Divers (Lom), we were happy to see the Glaucous Gull (Gråmåge) landing on the beach. It was not very shy, so we could get nice and close views of the bird. We also counted the Cormorant colony. With 48 nests, we had quite an increase from our last visit a week ago.

Glaucous Gull (Gråmåge) at Nordstrand 

Julian went for a walk and had a call with some friends, and we ended the day with a very appreciated lasagna by Alix.

Evening view of the lighthouse

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

Summary of today's raptor migration in DOFbasen

People: Dylan Daunt, János Schadl, Alix Bortolussi, Alvin Johansson, Julian Helbig, Simon S. Christiansen, Joey Christiensen, Lisa Vergin