Skogsøy 15 May 2021 - Cetacea and another new species for the garden

 Very calm with variable light winds were hardly ideal conditions for the species I was hoping for and needless to say they failed to show.

However, all was not lost as in addition to a steady passage of birds there were a couple of pods of Porpoise nise (quite a common sight), a larger cetacean which might have been a Minke whale vågehval and quite a bit of other marine life activity at the surface.

This might be a Minke Whale vågehval - it surfaced a couple of times as it passed north

Auks were seen passing and quite a few also on the sea - both Guillemots lomvi and Puffins lunde were seen resting / feeding and I spent way too much time fully zoomed in on a couple of auks that looked a bit wrong for Guillemot....Perhaps oddly the vast majority of the auks passing the last couple of weeks have been Razorbills alke.

Surprisingly given the lack of wind Gannet havsule numbers reached three figures. But once again only one White-billed Diver gulnebblom - a second year bird.

New for the year during the seawatch was a migrating Tree Pipit trepiplerke.

Numbers were as follows:

Red throated Diver N 30

Red throated Diver S 4

White Billed Diver N 1 2cy

Northern Gannet N 107

Northern Gannet S 1

Great Cormorant N 1

Eurasian Shag N 12

Eurasian Shag S 66

Eider S 1

Common Scoter N 6

Common Scoter S 7

Velvet Scoter N 4

Merganser S 5

Whimbrel N 4

Arctic Skua N 1

Black headed Gull S 1

Common Gull N 31

Common Gull S 4

Black-legged Kittiwake N 11

Black-legged Kittiwake S 2

Arctic Tern N 9

Common Guillemot S 1

Razorbill N 24

Atlantic Puffin N 6

Atlantic Puffin S 1

Auk N 3

Auk S 1

As I returned to my car I heard about a Black-tailed Godwit svarthelespove at Husvatnet which I picked up on the way home. As it was the first for the county this year it sparked a twitch and surprisingly I saw birders out in the reserve in an area where there a number of breeding birds. I have no idea why as the bird was easily viewable from the road - and even the famous bus stop hide.

islandica Black-tailed Godwit svarthalespove photographed from my car at Husvatnet

Once home I had the best bird of the day - a cracking male Gargany knekkand on the "lagoon" in front of my house. However, it only stayed long enough to snap a few pictures before it flew. It looked like it might have gone down close by so I went looking but was unable to relocate it. This was species 157 for the garden:)

Male Gargany knekkand photographed from my terrace (and heavily cropped!)