Thursday, July 19, 2007

Skogsøy 19 July 2007 - Shearwaters

Great Black-backed Gull svartbak


At last! Finally some time spent actually out birding. Paid off nicely in the form of a single Manx Shearwater havlire. July is the peak time to see this rare visitor to these parts - see here for more details. Another good record was a Sooty Shearwater grålire - my earliest ever at Skogsøy. This species has been reported very early at other locations in Europe this year.

Other birds of interest included three Ruddy Turnstone steinvender and a Red-throated Diver smålom. Only a few Northern Fulmar havhest, 66 Gannet havsule and 14 Black-legged Kittiwake krykkje.

One interesting thing today were Gannets havsule REALLY struggling to swallow Garfish horngjel of up to 0.7m in length! The fish were only fractionally shorter than the length of a gannet's wing. These fish were the source of some amazing battles between Gannets and Great Black.backed Gulls svartbak. The Gannets won - but only just!

Willow Warbler løvsanger - absolutely everywhere at the moment

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