SKogsøy 06-07 July 2020 - Summer seawatching = Skogsøy record

Strong gale force winds from the north west on 06 July were too strong for any decent movement during most of the day - just as well as I was committed to driving my daughters to town where I spent a large part of the day.

In the evening winds dropped from around 20 m/s to a mere 10 m/s. This did the trick and from a little after 1900 until we left at 21:30 there was a record breaking passage of Manx Shearwater havlire - with a total of 31 passing, largest flock was 8 and was the closest flock to pass. I concentrated on enjoying these birds and making sure my daughter saw at least some of them. I didn't even try and photograph the the majority and instead made sure none of them were more interesting than Manx. Little else passed other than small numbers of various auks and some Gannets havsule. Manx Shearwater was far and away the commonest bird and outnumbered the Gannets by 3:1!!

The next morning winds were weaker still and with light but persistent rain we covered some other sites before hitting Skogsøy again. It was 0900 when we started seawatching and just one distant Manx Shearwater havlire was seen. However, there was a lot more variety with two Great Skua storjo heading south, a few Arctic Skua tyvjo, Puffins lunde, a Fulmar havhest and a southbound Red-throated Diver smålom among the sightings.

This partial albino GBBG svartbak caused some confusion for a few seconds

A male Pied Wagtail svartryggerle was at Harkestad, a Golden Plover heilo joined Lapwings vipe at Breivk and the Wrynecks vendehals continued to bring in food to their young at Sture.

Heavily cropped image of Wryneck vendehals with a beak full of food for its young