Værøy 2023 Day 2

Today was the day we had all been looking forward to. The strong winds were forecast to stop and we had optimistically interpreted that the weather systems would bring us birds from far further east.

Leaving the house at dawn there was indeed no wind (it was completely still) and there were a lot of birds in the air: thrushes, finches and pipits. It was great to experience but were there any scarce or rare birds among them?.As time wore on it became increasingly clear the answer was no. We found no new warblers and there were very few birds on the deck.

A very high flying Short-eared Owl was good enough but after that I had to make do with Jack Snipe hunting and of 11 birds I found 3 were of birds on the deck and of course I rather over did the photo taking😊

We all started getting a bit despondent and ended up going back to the area around our house. Luckily Kjell saved the day for everyone with a Richard’s Pipit. This is a species that has p become rare in Norway and this was only the second in the country this year. It was also the most cooperative bird of the species i have ever seen and I managed my first ever non flight photos. It was not particularly large and we used some time to convince ourselves it wasn’t a Blyths but once it called we were happy with it being a Dick’s.

Richard’s Pipit (tartarpiplerke)

Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin)

Can you find it?

A late Whinchat (buskskvett)

Otter

Sanderling (sandløper)

Birding at 7am

Dunlin (myrsnipe)

Barnacle Geese (hvitkinngås)

young Long-tailed Duck (havelle)

Short-eared Owl (jordugle)

I thought the Otter was going for the duck but the duck wasn’t concerned

Parrot Crossbill (furukorsnebb)

Kjell showing me where the Whinchat was 😊

Golden Plover (heilo)

Store Færder pictures

I am now back home after an eventful last day on Store Færder. The number of birds ringed fell from 13 on Friday to 10 and then just 3 on Sunday which I think goes down in the record books as the worst three day streak ever!

I had lots of photos and videos of mostly waders to process and have got my best shots of a number of species. It was novel to be able to get so close to species that I usually see at very long range at wetlands like Nordre Øyeren.

Little Stint, Sanderling, Knot, Dunlin and Turnstone all showed very well and I will publish rather too many photos...

Little Stint (dvergsnipe):

Little Stint (dvergsnipe)

Sanderling (sandløper):

Sanderling (sandløper)

together with Dunlin (myrsnipe)

Turnstone (steinvender):

Turnstone (steinvender)

Knot (polarsnipe):

Knot (polarsnipe) and a Dunlin - the size difference looks huge here but doesn't seem so big in the field

Knot in flight with a couple of Dunlin underneath

Dunlin (myrsnipe):

Dunlin (myrsnipe)

Common Seals (steinkobbe):

Common Seal (steinkobbe)

much variation in colour

Shags (toppskarv) and a couple of larger Cormorants (storskarv)

Shags

a ship passing in the night

Jupiter and 4 of its moon and Saturn which were visible at the same time along with Mars

I was trying to capture the Milky Way but that hasn't come out in the picture but there are a lot of stars out there!

size differences - Little Stint, Knot & Dunlin

there were some passerines - here Lesser Whitethroat (møller) and Willow Warbler (løvsanger)

Peregrine (vandrefalk)

Pied Flycatcher (svarthvit fluesnapper)

and Redstart (rødstjert)