A chilled day for the Sandwich Terns

A new arrival in the garden: The Snowdrops "Vintergæk" withered, but the Wood anemones "Hvid anemone" are flowering now! Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

Morning observations:

I went to the morning observation at 6:45. It was a really nice morning, not windy and the visibility was great! I saw quite some Sandwich terns “Splitterne” this morning! They were diving in the sea and some were migrating. I also saw a flock of 30 Greater white-fronted geese “Blisgås”. After two hours, the migration started to slow down. But luckily, the Sandwich terns were still diving in the sea, so it was fun to look at!

Todays observations can be seen here.

After the morning observation I went to Hvidbjerg Strand again to collect some dead birds for Levi’s project. But unfortunately I couldn’t find any. Luckily the weather was really nice, I even took my jacket off because it was too warm.

The ringing:

So today the 2^nd of April and DMI did not fool us again, the weather was as it had forecasted it, low wind and sunny from sunrise on. Still very cold when I opened the nets. There must have been some moisture in the air during the night which froze on the nets. That made it a bit difficult to open the nets and in the first rounds, I still had some icy little parts in the nets the first rounds until the sun melted it during the morning. It was not a busy day, but I had quite a good round at 11:00, so I decided to do one more round before and then decide whether to close or not. It did not bring any new birds, so I closed at 12:00. My highlight of today was the fourth Blackcap “Munk” for the season. Like the three before, it was a male, I am curious when the first females are arriving.

Blackcap, male/ Munk, han. Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

The Chiffchaff "Gransanger" was the bird that was caught most often today. Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

Now it is evening, the sun already went down, and we are trying for owls, there are no owls breeding at Blåvandshuk, birds coming out here are migratory birds, so it is okay to attract them by sound at that time of year.

Let´s see if we are lucky this time.

The moths:

There was one new moth species for me in the trap this morning. It was Cerastis rubricosa “Okkerrød Aprilugle”, two of it, we are at the very beginning of their flight season.

Cerastis rubricosa “Okkerrød Aprilugle”. Picture: Hanelie Sidhu

Besides that, I had again Xylocampa areola “Gedeblad-ugle”.

Little Tern project:

In the afternoon I deep cleaned Bents office because I wanted to move into the room – in the process I found a very interesting book. It looked very old - when I wiped off the dust I realized that I just found a hidden gem. It was the old landscape plan for Ribe. The maps and illustrations looked like they were handmade. I was quite intrigued by it therefore I started reading through the danish text. It is crazy to think about the fact that back in the 80’s there was no forest at Blåvandshuk at all.

After a nice cup of coffee and an italian lunch I went out to do some interviews. Today the Nationalpark was less busy then yesterday. I got answers from around 30 germans and 5 danes. It is fun to practice my broken danish and have conversations with the locals.

Before dinner I went out to see if there are any migratory birds over the sea – I was lucky enough to observe 35 scoters flying south. ;-) Additionally 2 Sandwich Terns blessed me with their presence. 

At the station: Joseph Stephan, Marit Nillissen and Hanelie Sidhu