Finally, a Dovekie!

Ringing: Closed due to heavy winds and rain.

Observation: I have a grudge with the military. The military area has been open the last week pretty much, but on this exact day, they were closed - probably the worst timing possible...The weather was absolutely horrific with powerful winds (15-16 m/s) directly from the west and pretty heavy rain. In these conditions it is paramount to be in the Sabine's bunker. Not only can you get seabirds extremely close from there, but you can obs in cover of both rain and wind. The problem is, that the Sabine's bunker is positioned about 1,8 kilometres into the military area, so we were forced to obs in straight headwinds and lots of rain. I will say, however, that it was mostly worth it!

While the rain and wind made it quite difficult to obs, and we didn't meet standard today, we still did manage some good species and decent numbers. Almost 2000 Common Scoters (Sortand), 103 Caspian Gulls (Kaspisk måge) - most likely a migratory record -, and 103 Alcids (Alkefugle) migrated by obs today. The highlight species of today were a Black-throated Loon (Sorttrubet Lom), a Dovekie (Søkonge), and a Sooty Shearwater (Sodfarvet Skråpe). Black-throated Loons have been quite uncommon this season, and this is only the 6th seen at obs during the fall season. And as for the Dovekie, this is the first find of the species at obs this season, and really a species we have been looking for the last couple of weeks. So overall, despite the weather, a pretty damn good obs, if I do say so myself…

Today's observations

 At the Station: Mathilde Sif Eiby, Anton Ræbild Jensen, Johan Them Steffensen, Storm Hauris Borum, Helena