Sun, Sweat, Saftevandsbakken

When I came back from our night out at Storsig at 05:15, Juliane and Brian were already in bed catching up on the sleep we didn’t get during the night, and I then did the same.

Coming back home from a long sleepless night.

We all woke up at about nine, when the sun was already shining bright outside and it started to get warm. Henrik Rask had already left. After breakfast, I went out the door and noticed there were quite a few raptors soaring high up in the cloudless blue sky, mainly Common Buzzards (Musvåge), Honey Buzzards (Hvepsevåge) and Kestrels (Tårnfalk). Together with them, also the Cinereous Vulture (Munkegrib) had come up to Skagen again. It’s so crazy how it has become almost a daily bird to watch! Because of the raptor activity, Brian and I decided to bike to Saftevandsbakken for some hours of raptor watching. Juliane went grocery shopping first, and joined us a bit later.

On our way to Saftevandsbakken.

We had our hopes up to find a special raptor among them, but unfortunately we didn’t (apart from the Cinereous Vulture (Munkegrib) of course). Juliane was looking for insects, especially beetles, while Brian and I were taking a little nap in the sun, and found an interesting ant species (Narrow-headed Ant, Rød Hedemyre). All the raptors didn’t really come close or overhead today, so we only saw them from far away. At 15:00, we left the place, and went into town to get some fantastic, refreshing ice cream, since it got very hot. Back at the station we met Simon and Páll, who moved to Skagen from the Faroe Islands, and will join us in the field during the upcoming weeks. After we took an Evening Meeting and did some data entry, Bao arrived at the train station and got picked up by Simon. Bao is an exchange student from Singapore and will stay with us for the next few days. Great to have you here!

People: Brian Browne, Julian Helbig, Juliane Rößler, Simon S. Christiansen, Martin & Kristine Rasmussen, Páll, Bao