Quiet morning and busy afternoon

Morning observations:

Today, Marit, Levi, and I were joined by David and Henrik during the morning observation. Already from early morning, it was clear that it would be a lovely warm day, and despite the slightly chilly wind, the sun managed to warm us up nicely during the session. It was great to feel the sun and the sense that we are truly heading toward summer.
Although the weather was pleasant for us, the calm northwesterly wind was not ideal for migration – it turned out to be a very quiet day with very few birds. Even the most common species, the scoter “Sortand”, was only seen in very small numbers.
However, we did get to see a decent number of terns “Terner”, which were the only birds still migrating in somewhat larger numbers. We are hopeful that the upcoming change in wind direction will help kickstart the migration again.

Today’s observations can be seen here.

The ringing:

It was a sunny but rather quiet morning today. The most exciting of the morning was that both Emma and Levi, who received their X-licences yesterday got to ring their first birds at Blåvand.

Bluetit "Blåmejse" - one of Emmas first birds ringed at Blåvand. Picture: Anne Hjortlund Hansen.

Levi extracting a bird out of the net. Picture: Anne Hjortlund Hansen

In the afternoon at the station…

Anne had told us quite a bit about her ornithology course at university, where she learned how to do Skin preparation of Birds. I was quite interested in that and Anne proposed to teach me on a dead Blackbird “Solsort” in the freezer. That is what we spend a big part of the afternoon on and we are quite content with the bird as my first try. It is not perfect, but the next bird will be better!

Anne and Hanelie doing skin preperation on a dead Blackbird "Solsort".

The Little Tern Project:

Today marked the first day Emma and I worked together on the project - I couldn’t ask for a better teammate!

We were quite efficient, cutting and painting all 90 wooden poles (each measuring 60 cm) for the coordinate systems, which will be placed in the predator exclosures at Blåvand and Rømø.

These coordinate systems will be used alongside records of locations and activities to help answer some of the key questions in my bachelor thesis.

Additionally, the poles will serve as rulers to measure sand drift during the breeding period.

preparing the poles, Photo: Hanelie & Emma

Tomorrow, Emma and I are heading to the beach to hammer in the poles for the coordinate systems, and to place the Little Tern decoys, driftwood, and “cockles” (Hjertmusling).

In the following week, I’ll head to Rømø to prepare the optimized areas there.

The wax eggs for measuring the predator density at Blåvandshuk and Lakolk Strand are also finished - they just need to be painted to make them look like the real deal.

I am looking forward to complete all the preparations and finally start monitoring the diving dwarfs (Little Terns) and the peaceful peckers (Plovers)!

A heartfelt thank you to Henrik Böhmer, who delivered the wood and provided the perfect tools for the job!

At the station: Joseph Stephan, Emma Gray, Marit Nillissen, Levi van den Os, Thomas Kristensen, Bent Jakobsen, Henrik Bohmer, David Manstrup, Hanelie Sidhu, Anne Hjortlund Hansen and our guest Christopher