Calm, sunny and freezing.
A quick check at Hjelme Vest rather late in the day was all I could manage today - and the light in the best area was rather challenging. A large Diver lom presented a rather embarassing ID headache - under normal conditions this bird should have been straightforward to identify in the 'scope.
The bill seemed very pale and translucent but this could just have been the light playing tricks. Generally pale faced, seemed to have a slight upcurve on the lower mandible.....all pointers towards Yellow-billed Diver gulnebblom which is an uncommon winter visitor and an absolute possibility.
Some obscenely cropped images below:
The worrying thing was the neck seemed a bit dark and there was something of the "notch" and thus more like the much commoner Great Northern Diver islom.
In the end I had to leave it for another day....
Other stuff included about 30 Purple Sandpipers fjæreplytt, a Curlew storspove, several Black Guillemot teist and the usual suspects - very few Eiders ærfugl AGAIN.
A quick check at Hjelme Vest rather late in the day was all I could manage today - and the light in the best area was rather challenging. A large Diver lom presented a rather embarassing ID headache - under normal conditions this bird should have been straightforward to identify in the 'scope.
The bill seemed very pale and translucent but this could just have been the light playing tricks. Generally pale faced, seemed to have a slight upcurve on the lower mandible.....all pointers towards Yellow-billed Diver gulnebblom which is an uncommon winter visitor and an absolute possibility.
Some obscenely cropped images below:
Bill good, neck not so good
Head more horizontal here - it was just about to dive
The worrying thing was the neck seemed a bit dark and there was something of the "notch" and thus more like the much commoner Great Northern Diver islom.
In the end I had to leave it for another day....
Other stuff included about 30 Purple Sandpipers fjæreplytt, a Curlew storspove, several Black Guillemot teist and the usual suspects - very few Eiders ærfugl AGAIN.
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