Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Øygarden 10 January 2017 - Back in business

Happy New Year!

Southerly winds, almost no rain and the sun even came out a few times.

After a relatively slow start to the birding year in eastern Norway I spent a couple of hours out and about on the home turf, had a number of good sightings and plenty of new species for the year. I didn't cover anywhere in any detail but visited quite a few places to get an idea about what is about.

The terrace provided the first birds of the year with a flock of three White-tailed Eagle havørn and a Peregrine vandrefalk - a decent way to start the day off with a mug of coffee in my hand.


albifrons Whitefronts tundragås on Husvatnet, Tjeldstø


A trip to the shop to stock up on essentials was a nice move for starters - a flock of 13 albifrons Whitefronts tundragås rested on the lake there. A rarer sighting was a Scaup bergand at the same place - not very often this species in seen in Øygarden in January,

Common Scoter svartand at Herdlevær



Velvet Scoter sjøorre with some kind of crab

After that it was the very much the usual winter suspects - a few Velvet Scoter sjøorre, a couple of Curlew storspove (also from the terrace), White-tailed Eagles havørn everywhere, a Redwing rødvingetrost at Hatten, a couple of Greylag grågås at Breivk and small flocks of Common Crossbill grankorsnebb at various places (again, also from the terrace).


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