Short-eared Owl and Bird Festival

The day couldn’t have started better. János and Dylan had decided to go on night catching at 2 am, as the weather was going to be cloudy, rainy and windy, which is perfect for night catching. They went to the beach and walked for around an hour. No birds in sight, everything seemed too quiet. It was raining heavily and they ended up completely wet so they decided that it may be better to come back to the station. And on their way back they saw it, a dark shadow sitting on the floor. It was a short-eared owl (Mosehornugle)!! Dylan walked slowly towards it, very carefully, step by step, holding the torch. The owl looked at him and then looked away several times, as if it were about to fly away at any moment. But it didn’t, and when they were close enough János was able to trap it with the net.

At around 3:15 Alvin’s phone started to ring. “We have got a short-eared owl!” All of us were waken up and went down with high excitement to the lab. There, the owl was waiting for us. It was a 2cy male, as we could tell from the white colour under the wings and the pattern of the feathers on the chest. We know it was born last year because the white spots on the tip of the central feathers of the tail (in adults they have black spots). The poor owl was so wet because of the rain that Simon used a hair drier to dry it. After the hairdressing session (or featherdressing session), came the photo session to capture the details and beauty of this bird. Some of us could hold it in our hands, one of those was me and it was a very special moment for me. Finally, it was released.

Underside of the wing. It is very white, what tells us it's a male.

 Juvenile tail.

János and Alvin wanted to keep on trying to find more birds so they went outside again. The rest of us went to sleep again, the rain was still heavy, which meant that the ringing was cancelled for today. János and Alvin didn’t catch anything else, but Alvin decided to go to do the migration counting although it didn’t stop to rain in the whole morning. He could see some waders like oystercatchers (Strandskade), redshanks (Rødben), dunlins (Almindelig Ryle), 4 Temminck’s stints (Temmincksryle), 1 bar-tailed godwit (Lille Kobbersneppe) and 1 red knot (Islandsk Ryle).

Apart from that, today it was the first day of the Skagen Fuglefestival. The weather may not have been the best, but that didn’t stop most of the activities to go as planned. We set up the stands and at 10:00 Simon and Oluf gave a speech to inaugurate the festival.

After that, people conversated, bird merchandising and birdwatching equipment was sold and coffee and food were served. In the afternoon, we could enjoy two presentations: Tårnfalke og ICARUS projektet, by Lars Bo Jacobsen; and Fugle i Ny Natur (FiNN), et levende laboratorium for fugle og biodiversitet, by Jacob Jensen from DOF.

In general it was a calm day that let us rest, recover and do other activities. Julian baked cookies to offer them to the public tomorrow and designed a sign for donations.

However, the rain didn’t take away the enthusiasm for birdwatching. Ole and Anton went to the harbour and saw eiders (Ederfugl) and common sandpipers (Mudderklire), János and Mika saw a flock of one hundred oystercatchers (Strandskade) and Dylan watched 1 great snipe (Tredækker) and a male red-backed shrike (Rødrygget Tornskade). After dinner, Janos, Mika, Dylan, and Alvin saw three Arctic Skuas (Almindelig Kjove), one of them was a light morph that was very close to the beach. They also had very close fulmars (Mallemuk). We will end the day going to Kandestederne, where we will try to look for great snipes (Tredækker). Wish us luck!

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

Summary of today's raptor migration in DOFbasen

People: Alvin Johansson, János Schadl, Mika Schadl, Julian Helbig, Dylan Daunt, Simon S. Christiansen, Lisa Vergin, Sverre Dahl Porsgaard, Anton, Ole, Olga Fernández Enríquez, Karen Marie & Søren