The beautiful rain

Monday afternoon I found myself searching for resident Black Woodpeckers in the forest next to my house. Although I was unsuccessful the walk wasn't a disappointment.

A came across a small flock of Yellowhammers that allowed good and lengthy looks. And this Rough-legged Buzzard hanging out on some fence posts:

The real highlight of the walk was not bird related - it involved the rain. I've been in Denmark now for one week and have already come to appreciate that it rains every day here. Even if it is a beautiful, warm and sunny day - you can be assured that the rain will come eventually. It is a constant. Just like how the Danish people are constantly unemotional - they don't seem to be very happy nor unhappy no matter what is thrown at them. Perhaps it is due to the rainy weather - they seem to be quite frank in that they simply take things as they come.

Despite the rain it can still be quite beautiful:

This place is surprisingly beautiful.

Olsemegle Revle

On Sunday I made the 1.5 hour trip to a sandy spit well known for shorebirds. It took me much longer to get there than anticipated because I was confused with where I was - but next time I will know better so I will be able to spend more time there.

Nevertheless, I managed to find my way and found many many shorebirds (including 12 species of shorebird) - Oystercatchers, Avocets, Eurasian Whimbrels and Little Stint were all new birds for me although I don't think the Eurasian Whimbrel is a new species - but it was still nice to see. This brings my DK shorebird list to 18, very nice!

If I hadn't got lost I wouldn't have found the Sanderling, nor the Avocets so that was good :)

juv. Sanderling and juv. Dunlin:

Once I got to the location where the shorebirds were I was a little overwhelmed with the thousands around me that I now had to identify. The Golden-Plovers stuck together for the most part and slept the whole time I was there:

Imagine that concentration stretching several hundreds of meters!

It was another good day, with a bonus of many many fresh, tasty and free plums! Along one of the trails (where I got lost) I came across several trees laden with plums ready to be eaten - in fact many had already fallen to the ground and began rotting away.
I helped my self to a bag full so now I don't need to buy fruit for another week or two!

Here's a photo of an apple tree:

And the beach:

Due to some errors with scheduling by one of my professors I now have Monday and Friday off!!! So I have 4 day weekends; however, Tuesday and Wednesday are quite busy. Anyway, that opens up a lot of possibilities for traveling so we'll see where it takes me.

I've already seen 11 of my 23 DK 'target' birds!

By the end of the day I had 82 species in Denmark and 56 lifers in just one week! If only every week could be like that!

Sundays lifers in order:
Eurasian Oystercatcher
Common Shelduck
Pied Avocet
Common Sandpiper
Little Tern
Little Stint

new sub-species:
Whimbrel
Red Knot

Vestamager

Yesterday I joined the Copenhagen birding group at a natural area just outside of the city core - I had heard of this place being very good for migrants and shorebirds. I expected it to be similar to Leslie Street Spit in Toronto because of its proximity to a large city. I was mistaken - this place was much better! It has already topped most if not all birding locations I've been to in Canada - except James Bay! Although, that may be because everything is new so I am easily excited.

But I've yet to see anything compete with thousands and thousands of European Golden-Plovers and Lapwings in the fields, mudflats and in the sky! I don't think I've ever actually seen shorebirds fly in a V-formation, but here it seemed to be the prevalent flight formation.

yeah, I didn't take many photos - let alone good ones(yet)!

To give an idea of what the area looks like (after a 10 minute rainstorm passed by and the sun came out):

99% of it is grassland/meadows... a small marsh yielded a hard to find Bittern. And along the coast is where another marshy/muddy area is - and where the shorebirds are.
This place is actually much larger than I expected it to be. A bike is almost necessary to be able to get to all the hotspots!

My highlights from the day were the EU Golden-Plovers, hearing Curlews and then finally seeing one (sort of like a very large Whimbrel with a longer and more curved bill - Long-billed Curlew-like I suppose) and pretty good looks at about 10 Ruff :)

A big thank you to David Collinge for taking the time to show me the area and helping me out with ID'ing the birds!

By the end of the day I had 49 lifers since arriving in DK and 70 birds on my DK list! Thank you eBird for being so user friendly!
Today I went to a beach called "Olsemagle Revle" that was equally as good - actually I saw 12 species of shorebird today and 'only' 11 yesterday :p with a total of 18 over the two days :-D
I'll write about that tomorrow.

In the near future I'll probably visit my local park again in search for Black Woodpecker (similar to the Pileated Woodpecker in North America but all black with a red crown) and possibly Sweden next weekend!