Tjeldstø and Herdlevær 25 March 2024 - Cheeky pre-work outing

Sunny with a cool northerly wind again.

I was up bright and early and decided to get a couple of hours birding in before work - partly spurred on by the fact the first bird I heard from my terrace was a singing Grey-headed Woodpecker gråspett.

Things went pretty well with the first Pink-foot kortnebbgås of the year on Husvatnet - a very common bird indeed in the east of Norway at the moment but not many move up the west coast of the country. Also singing Meadow Pipit heipiplerke here - the first I've seen locally. My first one was across the fjord last week:)

Pinkfoot kortnebbgås before the sun came up properly.

I was glad I stopped as I didn't see this bird on the way home

I did my usual round at Herdlevær where migrants included a few each of Skylark sanglerke and Song Thrush måltrost and a couple of Snow Bunting snøspurv. Here too Meadow Pipits heipiplerke had arrived.

One of the Meadow Pipits heipiplerke at Herdlevær

A short breakfast break with the scope produced much the same as Skogsøy did yesterday although passage seemed rather more subdued. A couple of Puffin lunde headed south and two Red-throated Diver smålom headed north.

My point and pray had mixed results - in fully automatic mode it tends to opt for a shutter speed too slow for flight photographs

Cormorant storskarv results not as good as yesterday:)

Massively cropped Guillemot lomvi - not to shabby considering the range

My good deed for the day was to show some birders/photographers from town the male Stonechat svartstrupe at Kollsnes.

Home before 10:00 and back to the grindstone.....