Bob, Birds and Butterflies

Dylan and I were greeted by strong westerly winds and the sun rising beautifully almost directly over the tip, as we started today’s morning observations at 04:40. The birds seemed to follow the rule ‘quality over quantity’: There were no larger movements (apart from decent numbers in Fulmars (Mallemuk)), but still we had some really nice observations. It started with a second calendar year Arctic Tern (2K Havterne), of which Dylan managed to get confirmative footage. We believe that it’s the same one we saw first ten days ago. While Dylan dealt with the tern, a Shorelark (Bjerglærke) landed on the beach just in front of me. It sticked around for a while, which allowed many people to see and enjoy it. Further more, we had several Arctic Skuas (Almindelig Kjove), both of the light and the dark morph, and Great Northern Divers (Islom).

Sunrise over Grenen.

View of the Shore Lark (Bjerglærke) through the scope.

During the third hour, Knud, Jørgen Hulbæk, Erik and others joined us. For them it was a special day today – Bob Dylan’s 85th birthday! Since they’re all such big fans (“Bobheads”), they celebrated like every year: With delicious cake and all those timeless classics playing through a Bluetooth speaker. Happy birthday, Bob! Dylan was even allowed a second slice of cake, because he shares his name with the celebrated singer-songwriter :) Just before we left, we had two very close female Honey Buzzards (Hvepsevåge) flying straight over our heads.

Celebrating Bob Dylan's birthday at WE3.

In the meantime, Olga and János had to fight boredom at the ringing. Because of the wind, they could only open 10 out of the 24 nets. In those, they only had about one bird each round. (Among them however two Spotted Flycatchers (Grå Fluesnapper)). At some point, Oluf came by with a guided tour, showing the interested visitors how and why we ring birds here.
We volunteers met again for lunch time at the station, and after the daily office tasks like data entry, postings etc, Dylan and János joined Jørgen Hulbæk on a trip to Frederikshavn. Their goal: Seeing the Broad-billed Sandpiper (Kærløber) that has been found resting at a beach there. They had great success and got some fantastic views on this beautiful and scarce bird – way better than expected. On the same beach, they also found a pair of breeding Arctic Terns (Havterne).

Broad-billed Sandpiper (Kærløber)!

Breeding Arctic Tern (Havterne).

On their way back, they stopped by a butterfly site near Råbjerg Mile, where they were enchanted by hundreds of Marsh Fritillaries (Hedepletvinge) – it must be one of the best years for these beauties so far!

Marsh Fritillary (Hedepletvinge)

While the three of them were on their little trip, I had a nice and long walk through the woods, fields and heathlands, and had a nice butterfly encounter too: A Glanville Fritillary (Okkergul Pletvinge). Olga went into town to visit the museum, have some ice cream and enjoy the sun.

Glanville Fritillary (Okkergul Pletvinge)

In the evening, Ole and Annette, our new guests in the apartment arrived. We are looking forward to a lovely week with them! When János checked the data collected by his passive recorder over the past days, he was happy to discover audio recordings of a Short-eared Owl (Mosehornugle), Spotted Crake (Plettet Rørvagtel) and Quail (Vagtel) among others. You can explore this exciting method of audible bird monitoring further in our latest post on Instagram and Facebook. 

People: János Schadl, Julian Helbig, Dylan Daunt, Olga Fernández Enríquez, Knud Pedersen, Jørgen Hulbæk, Ole & Annette