striking shirke, brilliant brilleand and a great snipe night (again)

Somehow, all the blog posts I write seem to start with a night-catching story. This time, Simon went to Volsted with Johan to catch Great Snipe (Tredækker). And they were very successful, catching two Great Snipes! One of them was a recapture from our catching session a few days ago and it had even increased in weight by 5 grams!

The already known 1K Great Snipe (Tredækker) with 5 more grams on the scale! Photo by Simon S. Christiansen

The first ones who got up this morning were Jule and Pauline, who opened the nets at Kabeltrommlen. A bit later, Sophie, Páll and Simon joined them. In total, they didn’t catch that many birds, but they still enjoyed the morning with some Redstarts (Rødstjert), and even the next Red-backed Shrike (Rødrygget Tornskade) flew into the net. It’s always a mix of excitement and a healthy dose of respect for just how bitey these little birds can be. But in this case, the bird was more chilled and not that bitey, also because it was a young bird, which are mostly not as bitey as the adults.

Young Red-backed Shrike (Rødrygget Tornskade). Photo by Pauline Nähring

The advantage of going on migration count is (apart from all the cool birds you can get, of course) that you can’t get bitten by birds in the hand. Okay, yes, that’s really obvious, I agree, but I’ve been searching for a good linking sentence from the ringing to the observations at World’s End 3, which Knud and I took care of. Today, I already got some feelings of autumn migration with some migrating Meadow Pipits (Engpiber), and the first Kittiwakes (Ride) also began to migrate. Especially the young birds are just so pretty, and I always enjoy watching them! Apart from these birds, the highlight of the count was definitely a Merlin (Dværgfalk), which was coming straight in from the sea.

Afterwards, we headed back and went grocery shopping with Simon. On our way back, we stopped at Nordstrand to look for the Surf Scoter (Brilleand), and yes! We saw it again! Not as well as yesterday, but it was still cool to see! 

Observing the Surf Scoter (Brilleand) from Nordstrand. Photo by Simon S. Christiansen

In the afternoon, we did our daily routine with data entry, napping, and then, in the evening, Pauline prepared a delicious dinner as well as a delicious apple crumble, while Jule sewed a net at Kabeltrommlen and I walked out to Cape Gadagong and got to see a Merlin (Dværgfalk).

And with the apple crumble in our stomachs, this day at Skagen Fuglestation comes to an end, and we are all looking forward to seeing what the next days will bring!

Highlights of the observation:

Surf Scoter (Brilleand)-1

Merlin (Dværgfalk)-1

Ringing (Kabeltromlen):

Total: 24

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

People: Mio Brix, Jule Tappe, Pauline Nährung, Knud Pedersen, Simon S. Christiansen, Johan Funder, Jørgen Kabel, Grethe and Stig Frederiksen