when the wind picks up...

Dark sky, peaceful surroundings and tensioned nets: If all these characters matching, we call it nightcatching! 

On this night, Jule did the night watch and checked the Storm-petrel (Stormsvale) and Nightjar (Natravn) nets every hour. Only the Nightjar net was successful this night. We caught 3 Nightjars! 

1K Nightjar (Natravn)

After we ringed the last Nightjar, which was caught in the closing round, the sky over Skagen slowly turned from dark to light. This meant that Simon Jr. and Cora were already at Skarvsøen, where they opened the nets. Unfortunately, they caught only 7 birds during the 6 hours of ringing, also due to the wind, which picked up during the ringing. But they used the time between the net rounds to check the lake. This turned out to be very successful! With 133 roosting Common Snipes (Dobbeltbekkasin), 1 1K Spotted Redshank (Sortklire) and a 1K Goshawk (Duehøg), they still had some great birds to watch!

While Cora and Simon Jr counting the Snipes, Johanna and I biked out to World's End 3 for the migration count. We started with a good first hour, with some Redshanks (Rødben) and Snipes (Dobbeltbekkasin) migrating in flocks. But, as on the days before, there was still not much migration on the sea. However, the continuous scanning paid off a bit. We managed to see two migrating Black-throated Divers (Sortstrubet Lom) and a Great Skua (Storkjove).

Johanna counting birds at Worlds End 3

After ringing and the count, there was not much happening at the station. But when I woke up, I heard from Cora that she would make pizza for lunch, so that kept us motivated to do some data work, such as typing in the observations from our trip on Thursday (check out this blog to see what was happening there), which was done by Simon Jr with his fast fingers!

While doing that, we could already smell the pizza coming from the kitchen. While eating this delicious dinner, we had very nice and funny conversations about everything! And, of course, we also talked about what we will do (and wish for) tomorrow.

So, let's see what the next day will bring!

Ringing Skarvsøen:

Reed Warbler (Rørsanger)-3

Blackcap (Munk)-1

Chiffchaff (Gransanger)-2

Willow Warbler (Løvsanger)-1

Total: 7

Highlights of the observations:

Great Skua (Storkjove)-1

Spotted Redshank (Sortklire)-1

Goshawk (Duehøg)-1

Spoonbill (Skestork)-1

Link to today's observations in the Dofbasen from observers in the area.

People: Mio Brix, Cora Köberle, Jule Tappe, Simon Kiesé, Johanna Ventjeer, Simon S. Christiansen, Ole Jørgensen, Brigitte Jørgensen, Lisa Vergin.