Chasing Skuas and Songbirds: A Day at Blaavand Fuglstation

As usual Merit and Strummer opened the mist nets before the sunrise, while Louis and I headed to the beach to do the daily morning observation. 

The migration was quite slow today with only 119 Oystercatchers (Strandskade), 209 Common Scoters (Sortand), 21 Red Knots (Islandsk Ryle), four Sanderlings (Sandlöber), five Golden Plovers (Hjejle) and three Arctic Skuas (Almindelig Kjove), which definitely saved the day. We were very happy that the Skuas came so close to the beach, gracing us with close up views of their incredible behavior.

Arctic Skua - Foto: Louis Poulsen

Merit and Strummer did not have the luck they wished for today and caught only 16 birds including 5 Bullfinches (Dompap), 2 Chaffinches (Gransanger), 2 Common Whitethroats (Tornsager) and a Lesser Redpoll (Lille Grösisken). But the small number of birds left a lot of extra time to control the data so Merit and Strummer were able to complete this task for this autumn season so far, which made both of them very happy.

Male Chaffinch - Foto: Merit Lenk

To cap of this beautiful day at the Fuglstation Louis made a delicious Pasta Carbonara for dinner and all of us relished every bite.

People at the station: Louis Poulsen, Merit Lenk, Strummer Edwards and Joseph Stephan.