Observationer
Hello dear blog and loyal readers! Today was still warm, still slightly windy with wind from southeast. As always i had high hopes for the morningsibservation. I was specifically looking out for migrating loons and dabbing ducks, as they have both been somewhat decent the last couple of days. So at six AM i set out for my daily walk into the rosehipbush. The first half an hour was decent with two skuas, a light going south and a dark resting for a little while. I did howver already notice that the tide was quite high, and thus not a lot of resting gulls or waders. The common- and sandwich terns was however quite busy this morning, most going north or forraging in the area. Some gannets were also starting to show up for their favorite dinnerplace a couple hundred meters from the shore. By the time i went home roughly 90 gannets where eating fish or resting quite close to where i was seated. I could see them without telescope or binoculars, and had a fantastic view seen through my scope. I do love the diversity of gannets in the different stages of age and moulting. As always a nice sight!:)
The loons and ducks did however disappoint. Besides my usual scoters i only had a single teal duck and three red throated loons! Not a lot at all. The waders however... were also lacking.In total 18 oystercatchers (!), 4 turnstones, 6 red knots, 21 sanderlings and 3 red shanks. Not a very exciting morning if i a being completely honest. The view however was wonderful, and if birds would have shown up i would have had them in the most wonderful morning light.

Ringmærkning

With the end of August also came what I believe to be one of the last nice summer days! With nice warm weather we also had a nice variety in bird species! The morning started with a nice mix of Robins, Bullfinches and Chaffinches. Later on we got a nice streak of Yellowhammers and Redstarts!

-Yellowhammer in hand

Later we got a cute pair of Coal Tits and a few Willow Warblers, as well as one young Black Bird and beautiful Black Caps!

At around 9:30am Sverre joined Lise and I for  a few net checks and got to ring his first bird, a wounderful first year Bullfinch!

-Sverre´s first ringed bird, a young Bullfinch

Then, as we were packing up and going on our final net check round, a nice little surprise, a Sparrow Hawk looking for her morning snack in the form of a traumatised Redstart!

On our way back to the observatory I let a few present visiters know that we would be releasing the sparrow hawk fairly soon. Turns out word got around quickly and when we came back to the parking lot of the station with the ringed bird in hand, we had a nice sized group of motivated people and lots of exited children waiting for the release! This made a great chance for a little demonstration and biodiversite awareness talk from my part. Since I speak german I was able to also share some fun facts about this incredible bird with the youngest of our spectators, who seemed to quite enjoy a close look at the beautiful hawk!

-Lua Koplin

 People at Station: Lua Koplin, Lise Mastrup and Sverre Dahl Porsgaard

Observationer

Still nice and warm be the sea. A starting temperature of 17 degrees and a calm wind from southeast. David Manstrup joined me for the first two hours of the morning observation today, that was a pleasent surprise. We had a nice velvet scoter (Fløjlsand) and two arctic skuas (almindelig kjove), a light and a dark, within the first half hour. The migration of dabbing ducks has started ever so slighty, as we had a total of 20 teals (krikand) and 6 wigeons (pibeand) today. Together with the 35 pintail (spidsand) from yesterday, duckseason as more or less beginning. Officially hunting season on dabbing ducks (teal, pintail, wigeon, garganey, northern shoveler, gadwall and mallards) is starting on monday the first of september. That will probably force a lot of ducks south. Raptor-wise we saw three migrating sparrowhawks, a marsh harrier and a great spotted woodpecker. To top it all of we also saw a whopping 12 red-throated loons. I was quite pleased to see them coming this close, some just along the reef. But have been told they will be here in MUCH larger quantities later in the season. I have high hopes for the coming month! :)
- SDP

Ringmærkning

Vi startede godt ud her til morgen med alle net åbne. Efter en lille reparation på det ene kratnet nød vi farveskiftene på himlen i løbet af solopgangen under de første runder. I dag var en stille dag med hensyn til antal fugle, men så havde vi til gengæld god tid til dem der var. Jeg (Lise) er stadig helt ny til ringmærkning, så mens vi ikke har et væld af fugle, er Lua god til at lære mig håndteringen og detaljerne ved de enkelte fugle. Sverre nævnte for os at han så en stor flagspætte flyve i retning af fyrhaven under morgenobsen og måske var det selvsamme flagspætte vi fangede nede i det bagerste kratnet. Her fik jeg (med en hjælpende hånd fra Lua!) lov til at prøve kræfter med at vikle den ud af nettet.

Sidst på formiddagen havde vi flere runder med tomme net. Da vi under den sidste runde inden for standardtiden snakkede frem og tilbage om, hvor længe vi havde lyst til at holde nettene åbne endnu, blev vi glædeligt overrasket af to nye arter for dagen - sortmejse og topmejse. Ovenpå dem gav vi nettene et par chancer endnu og fangede lidt fugle som Sverre hjalp med at håndtere.

To styk sortmejser - en voksen og en ungfugl.

En topmejse med sans for at posere for kameraet.

Folk på stationen:
David Manstrup, Lua Koplin, Lise Mastrup and Sverre Dahl Porsgaard

Observationer

The wind is picking up again, not much but just enought for it to get interesting. Today started with six meters per second from east-southeast. I was alone for the first half of the morning observation. In this time i had three red throated loons (rødstrubet lom) and one black blackthroated (sortstrubet lom). That was really nice and caught me a bit by surprise. What a loony start of the day! I also had some beautiful adult red knots (islandsk ryle), who really showed their spectacular red chest in the pretty morning light today! In total 27 red knots.
After the first half Bent joined me again for the hour to come. From here on we saw a lot of gannets (suler), in total we probably had around 100 fouraging and just generally resting in the area! We also had two wonderful red male bar tailed godwit (lille kobbersneppe). Red was really the theme-color today! Bent and i stayed roughly an hour after the standard time, because we saw some barn swallows (landsvale) gathering up for migration, together with three sparrowhawks that marked the end of yet another nice morning observation at Blåvandshuk:)
- SDP

Ringmærkning

The morning started of slow, but the warm nice weather made up for the last few cold days! After getting 4 new robins, things slowed down a bit but then we had a nice surprise, as we caught a bird in our helgoland trap, wich is a walk in trap that narrows towards the end, different to our usual catching methods wich are the classic mistnets. The bird we caught was no stranger to us, as it just happens to be a little female redstart that is always around the same area.

Around 09:30, as Lise and I were just in the middle of a net check, calmy chatting about, we saw our catch of the day fly into the net infront of us! It was a very fisty and angry young greater spotted woodpecker that very happily pecked on my hand as if I was a tree! After Lise got a chance to help processing and handle her first woodpecker, Sverre got the chance to release it afterwards, being the only staff member to not get pecked!

-Lua Koplin

Folk på stationen:
Bent Jakobsen, Lua Koplin, Lise Mastrup and Sverre Dahl Porsgaard

Observationer
Ahhh såm kom der endelig lidt mild og dejlig vind sydfra. Morgenen bød på 3 sekundmeter fra Sydsydøst og hele 15 grader fra starten af. Jeg havde derfor nøje udvalgt mig et sted i klitterne hvor jeg både havde udsigt over hav såvel som land. Med den milde og lydsvage vind havde jeg nemlig mulighed for at følge med i trækkende vipstjerter og pibere ud fra kaldet. Og specielt lyde blev da også dagens højdepunkt da jeg havde selskab af en ordentlig rappenskralde af en jernspurv. Den gav den i sandhed gas med diverse kald fra hybenbusken imens engpibere og både gule og hvide vipstjerter fløj over mig. Der var igen i dag tryk på sydtrækkende sortænder i morgenstundens første time. Derudover var der et overvæld af både fjordterner og splitterner som man virkelig kunne høre på en vindstille dag som i dag. Jeg må ærligt indrømme at jeg havde forventet lidt trækkende rovfugle grundte vindretningen, det blev dog desværre kun til to trånfalke som endda var rastende. Efter de tre timers morgenobs gjorde Bent mig selskab. Vi blev hængende indtil 10.15. Der kom lidt vadere imens Bent var der, men de var langt ude grundet lavvande, Han spottede dog fire flotte trækkende storspove! Ellers må dagens højdepunkt være da ca. 600 skarver kom flyvende over hovedet på mig og slog sig ned for at fiske lige ud fra strandbreden. De guffede den ene fisk efter den anden i sig og mæskede sig gevaldigt i en halv times tid inden de stilte sig på en sandbanke og tørrede vingerne. Skarven er nu engang en af mine yndlingsfugle:)

- SDP

Ringmærkning

Vi vågnede friske op til en smuk, vindstille morgen med håb om flere fugle i nettene end de foregående dage. Fuglene var heldigvis også friske, så vi kom ikke til at kede os. Dagens højdepunkter ankom i form af en rigtig fin rødtoppet fuglekonge med sin flotte orange krone og senere en ringdue. Undervejs fik vi desuden besøg af Bent og til de sidste par runder sluttede Sverre sig til os og fik mulighed for at øve sig på at håndtere et par fugle.

Dagens rødtoppet fuglekonge, som gæstede os i stationshaven.

Ringduen er super spændende til trods for (eller måske netop fordi) det er en man ser overalt til daglig.

- LM

Folk på stationen:
Lise Mastrup, Lua Koplin and Sverre Dahl Porsgaard

Observationer

I fear i am starting to sound like a broken record, but today was yet another day with northwestern wind. Today 9 meters per second. I started the Observation alone, but after half an hour Åge joined me for the lookout. Bent also joined me in the last hour. That was very needed, as it had been a slow morning without company. Together the three of us sat there counting oystercatchers (Strandskade), Red knot (Islandsk ryle), Dunlins (almindelig ryle) and whatever else might show up. In total we had 22 different species, with the most prominent being a forraging kestrel (tårnfalk) and five arctic skuas (almindelig kjove). We had three light skuas and two dark, one in particular had a beatiful light colorscheme and have been around the area for a couple of days. We also had some nice Teals (krikand). Bent told me more ducks will show up during the week, as hunting season is about to start and that drives the ducks south along the coast.
After the morning observation we went back to the station for a glass of homemade sea-buckthorn juice. On the way we met Barbara who will be ringing at Skagen birding observatory next week. We showed her the station and she went with Lua and Lise for a couple of rounds and the station:)
Tomorrow the wind will be only three meters form direct south, so i am looking forward to that!
- SDP

Ringmærkning

The morning started of windy and the first birds we caught were recaptures including some familiar faces like a little female redstart who just always seems to be around! We got the first gold crest of the season, which was quite exciting.

Then things picked up when I ( Lua) was ringing a garden warbler and just happened to look outside at one of our garden nets. There a Sparrow hawk had been caught in the net, trying to get an easy meal out of the previously caught dunnock!!!

The tiny garden bird did survive the attack and after some rest it was very lively and happy to fly away!

Folk på stationen:
Lise Mastrup, Lua Koplin and Sverre Dahl Porsgaard

Observationer

The north-western wind strikes again! Another day with sharp winds from the great northwest meant roughly the same amount of birds as usual. Today i had just 25 oystercatchers, 8 turnstones, and 12 dunlins. All in all a very slow morning with just me at the observation post. I did however have four arctic skuas, one i defenitely recognised from yesterday. They were however quite docile today, hardly chasing the terns. In the early i enjoyed looking at more than a thousand scoters migrating north. The best moment today was definitely when an older white-tailed eagle flew over my head and roamed the area for a couple of minutes. What a nice looking bird, with its wonderful white tail! Another great, but slightly dull, morning in Blåvand! :)

In the evening Lise arrived at the station. We have been looking forward to her joining us at the station. Lise has been at the station in the spring, so she is already experienced in the area and will help Lua with the ringing for the next month. She is a doing a Danish triple. which means that she will be going for one month at Blåvand, Skagen and Gedser birding observatory. We look forward to working with her and sharing a daily life at the station:)
- SDP

Ringmærkning

As the weather conditions have slightly improved we have opened the nets in the morning and got a nice mix of species. The morning started with recaptured robins, two handsome male black-caps and one humble yellowhammer! The yellowhammer had two healed wounds on both of his wings, they looked like small porfurations, as well as a few growing feathers, a potential cat attack that this lucky bird managed to escape from! The last birds of the day were a bunch of young bullfinches that provided a really wholesome observation.

Two of the finches had been caught in the same net close together. After processesing and releasing the first individual, it decided to perch still in eye site watching my every move very closely. As soon as I was ready to release the second bullfinch, its friend was still loyaly waiting at the same spot. The second bird flew into the closest tree and as soon as it had landed, the first one joined immediatly! After resting together for a couple of moments, both flew off into the same direction, ready for more joined adventures!

Folk på stationen:
Lise Mastrup, Lua Koplin and Sverre Dahl Porsgaard

Observationer

With twelve meters per second from northwest, it would seem to be a cold and windy morning. But we (Thomas and I) took shelter behind a rosehip bush. Shelteret from the wind, the weather was actually almost kind of pleasent: The sea almost looked pink-ish when the sun rose in the early morning. The birds however did not come out much to play in the heavy winds. In total we only had 61 oyster catchers the entire morning, thats only 20 per hour! The terns and the black-headed gulls where having a hard time battling the wind. We did however enjoy two skuas (a light and a dark one from yesterday), who where liking the wind and chasing tired terns. We also had a decent marsh harrier flying over the beach looking for an easy meal.
The bird of the day for me however was a greedy cormorant. The cormorant had caught a flatfish of sorts, that was waaay to wide to swallow. It was struggling for a bit until an adult great blackbacked gull showed up and stole the catch! Then a juvenile blackback came and stole it again and tried to swallow the fish whole. No succes, instead it tried to impale the fish with its strong beak... also unsuccesful, but atleast vaery intertaining for a couple of minutes:)
- SDP

Ringmærkning

After a few days of intense wind, the morning conditions remained the same and it was not possible to open the nets. However, things started to look a bit better and around 10am some of the nets got opened and we got birds! Two gorgeous garden warblers and one radiant robin! All of these first year birds had not been caught before and were clearly annoyed about being handled for a short while, who wouldnt be?
 

After this trio I (Lua) watched a couple of collared doves and blue tits rest and hop around the nets, in hope they might find their way into the open nets, which they didnt. So the nets remained empty for the rest of the day, but the sun was warm and bright! 

Folk på stationen:
Thomas Kristensen, Lua Koplin and Sverre Dahl Porsgaard

Observationer

Todays was finally the day we had all been waiting for. With 11 meters per second from Northwest, this was decent weather for potential shearwaters. At six in the morning Henrik and i left for the morning observation. We were hopefull, even though the first interval was'nt that great. Then throughtouty the second interval we were counting common terns going north and looking through the gulls for interesting birds. Turns out the yellowlegged gull from earlier this month had returned to the beach once more!
We did not have a lot of waders at the shore today, but 16 turnstones (stenvender) did bring a lot of joy. Other than that we had a total of eight arctic skuas (almindelig kjove)

Arctic skua, light variation in the foreground

Then at 07.35 it finally happened! We saw a sooty shearwater (sodfarvet skråpe) going north against the wind. It was moving up and down beneath the waves at the reef. We got a great look at it, and followed it north with our scopes until we lost it. A wonderful and very lively bird, definitely a first for me. Another great day to be observing at the western most point of Denmark!
- SDP

Ringmærkning

The great and powerful western wind, which allowed for shearwater sighting, unfortunately meant no ringing for today. We did go for a nice walk in the area, when the millitary area finally opened up again. Not much to see except for a dead cetacean caught in a fishing net and some debris that the winds brought to the beach:)

Folk på stationen:
Henrik Böhmer, Lua Koplin, and Sverre Dahl Porsgaard

Observationer

I (Sverre) braved the harsh weather (7m/s NV) and set out for my usual spot for the morningobservation. As soon as I looked into my scope, I saw three turnstones (Stenvender) resting on the beach. Off to a great start, i thought! Then it was a bit quiet for some time, an ocasional small group of Oystercatchers (Strandskade), until Morten decided to come to my aid with a bit of luck. After Morten joined the observation i had two large groups of oystercatchers with some turnstones in between. All in all i had 14 turnstones troughout the day. At 0700 we had a light drizzle, but we covered the scopes for a couple og minutes and everything turned out fine. It was also a great day for lesser black-backed gull, as i counted 88 on the beach.

A picture of my nice morning view, the sandy waves almost look golden in the right light

A little after midday Hans Meltofte arrived at the station. He brought cake and tales of his travels and experience with being on the board of both DOF and WWF. A very pleasant visit, he will stay the night at the observatory.
A little later we said goodbye to Morten. It has been an absolute joy have such a calm and experienced person living at the station for a couple of days. Thank you for the great talks and lessons in bird ringing, you will be missed until your next visit:)
- SDP

Ringmærkning

Today started of quite cold and windy, however a cloudy sky made for a great sunrise on the other side of the light house! As the conditions continued to stay a bit harsh we had to keep a few of the more wind expoused nets shut to garantee the safety of our birds. As expected we did not catch to many, with a total of 9 individuals of 7 different species. Within the recaptured birds we had one song thrush and a yellowhammer, which for me (Lua) a ringer from Portugal, is always nice to catch! Then, one of our yesterday ringed common redstarts seemed quite fond of the nets, getting caught 2 more times today! In hope of the weather conditions increasing later on through out the day, we left the nets closest to the station open for an extra couple of hours, unfortunetly only to catch pine cones!

Folk på stationen:
Henrik Böhmer, Morten Jenrich, Lua Koplin, Sverre Dahl Porsgaard and Hans Meltofte

Observationer
Morgenobsen havde i dag udsigt til voldsom god sigtbarhed og endnu en morgen med varm og svag nordøsten vind. Jeg vurderer at sigtbarheden lå på over 30 kilometer, så vi kunne se alle de flotte møller fra Vattenfall. Vattenfall har i øvrigt lige lavet en fremragende reklame i samarbejde med den amerikanske skuespiller Samuel L. Jackson. Nå men tilbage til fuglene.
Der var mange birders i området omkring morgensobsen. Udover Thomas og jeg var der tre personer med teleskop på stranden, samt to andre medobs hos os i hullet i hybenrosen. Så vi var rigeligt mennesker til at spotte alle de fugle der kom forbi... hvilket viste sig ikke at være voldsomt mange. Vi havde to rødstrubet lom, fire rødben, fem gule vipstjerter, to små kobbersnepper og toppede skalleslugere på træk. Derudover havde jeg fornøjelsen af at der i dag sad hele tre stenpikkere på nabobunkeren og gjorde os med selskab.
Dagens højdepunkt kom da lige i perfekt timing til at vi sluttede morgenobsen. Ni gæs trak mod nord. Men ikke bare hvilke som helst gæs, gruppen bestod af en grågås, syv canadagæs og en hybrid af canadagås x grågås. Den var sjov og kom flot over hovedet på os.

Efter morgenobsen gik vi tilbage til stationen, hvor vi lige pludselig svømmede i dejligt selskab. Folk kom fra fjernt og nært for at sige hej, og med to gæster i huset var vi lige pludselig omkring ti personer til eftermiddagskaffen. John kiggede også forbi stationen med en skøn ny svensk vadefugleplakat til at pryde væggene.
Endnu en dejlig dag på hukket. Imorgen kommer der et sted imellen 7 til 9 sekundmeter fra nordøst, så det er jeg spændt på:)
- SDP

Ringmærkning

En dejlig morgen med let vind fra nordøst og klart vejr gav en god ringmærkningsdag ved Blåvand fuglestation.
Både antal og artslisten var godkendte, så Lua fik noget af en start på hendes ringmærkningsophold.
Der var gang i Broget Fluesnapper med hele 21 stk mærket i dag og dermed noget af en højdespringer, da der hidtil i sæsonen blot var fanget 12 af dem fra midt juli indtil i morges.

Blandt ringmærkernes favoritter var der fangst af en skøn Skovsanger og ikke mindst en ny art i hånden for Morten, der glad kunne hente en ung Grønspøtte ud af et net i krattet ved Fyret.

Alt i alt en rigtig god velkomst fra fuglene til Lua!
- Morten

Lua med Grønspætten


Sæsonens første Skovsanger - altid en rigtig lækker fugl at stå med

Folk på stationen:

Ditte Seeberg, Jens Kirkeby, Thomas Kristensen, Morten Jenrich, Sverre Dahl Porsgaard and Lua Koplin