Thursday, August 01, 2019

Øygarden 31 July & 01 August - Tringa time / back in business at last

With only a couple of weeks left to work this year I felt I could take a morning on Hernar this morning without any issues. A whole morning birding with no phone calls and with no feeling of having to be doing something else - fantastic!! Calm and sunny conditions after an overcast / rainy night made things even better.

One of many Painted Ladies (a migrant butterfly) on Hernar today

Rock Pipit skjærpiplerke


Stonechat svartstrupe

I would have been happy with anything today but one of the first birds was a Stonechat svartstrupe. Always a good bird and my first locally for the year. More importantly my first on Hernar (though one was seen on the island in the aftermath of the Crag Martin all those years ago). Three singing Corncrake åkerriskse were a surprise - in as much as they are still singing in the middle of the day!

Merlin dvergfalk, three White-tailed Eagle havørn, a Whimbrel småspove and several young Arctic Terns rødnebbterne following their parents on fishing expeditions, 35+ Twite bergirisk, a young Cuckoo gjøk begging and being fed by its Meadow Pipit heipiplerke parents and plenty more meant that there was always something to see.

On the evening of 31 July I had a stroll at Tjeldstø which produced my first Green Sandpipers skogsnipe of the year along with a flock of 12 Snipe enkeltbekkasin and a few other species of wader. A hunting Peregrine vandrefalk kept the birds on edge.

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