The Quality Outshines the Quantity

After many days of strong east wind, it finally decreased today, but the heat remained the same. To begin, my name is Lucas Corneliussen, I am 20 years old from the United States and am excited to be spending the summer counting & ringing at two stations here in Denmark (Blåvand & Skagen). Today was my third day here at the station and for me, it may be my favorite so far.

 The day can be described as high quality over high quantity. Beginning the morning, I headed back to “Böhmer’s Hole” to watch the morning migration only to find a general lack of birds. The first hour was slow, with very few birds moving: until I noticed a Little Egret (Silkehejre) flying south! Henrik & David arrived half an hour later and seemed a bit disappointed to miss the egret, but the morning was saved when we received a message from Morten and Michael that they had caught not only a Red Crossbill (Lille Korsnæb), but also a Thrush Nightingale (Nattergal)! David and I rushed over to catch a look at the nightingale and immediately upon our return Henrik called out “Common Rosefinch (Karmindompap)!” as it flew over. This was the first one this spring and something we had been expecting with the east wind.

The remainder of the observations from this morning were slow with almost as many Red-throated Loons (Rødstrubet Lom) and Common Scoters (Sortand) going north as south. Although we did have one lingering Black Tern (Sortterne) with the other terns on the beach. That said, the main migration seems to have trailed off for the spring. Henrik, David and I headed back to the station for some coffee and to watch the sky and our success continued! Four European Bee-eaters (Biæder) flew over the station and put on a show for us over the next ten minutes. During that time: Mortern had caught a different Hawfinch (Kernebider)! Around 11 AM, once Henrik and Maxim left, David and Morten spotted a Eurasian Hobby (Lærkefalk) heading southeast over the dunes, fortunately I was right inside working and was able to scramble outside to see it.

Later, Michael decided to go to the little “lake” and spend some time searching for anything he could find. He ended up finding 2 Common Pochards (, a Common Scoter and THREE Little Grebes! Wow, and to think that there were no records since 2009 as of a few days ago. Overall a great day!

Also, in the late evening yesterday: Michael and I went back out towards the lake and spent the evening trying to ring one of the Red-backed Shrike (Rødrygget Tornskade) and we were SUCCESSFUL!! We were able to capture a female, full of eggs and make her the first member of Michael’s project to color ringing shrikes at Blåvand Fuglestation!