Saturday, February 10, 2018

Tjeldstø 10 February 2018 - Short but sweet

Strong SE winds and overcast

Of late I have been using my spare time for fishing rather than birding, landing some decent Cod torsk to 4kg, Halibut kveite, Ling lange, Coalfish sei and Pollack lyr. Despite eating fish almost every day the freezer is full.

Today I took a very short walk at Tjeldstø where I had two more new species to the Øygarden year list- Best bird was a Jack Snipe kvartbekkasin which was something of a surprise given the conditions. Although quite a regular species out here during the winter months they can be hard to find when conditions are good for them - and now it seems there is plenty of boggy ground to choose from. A small flock of Greylags grågås may have been early returning migrants as they were on the most popular breeding sites rather than the fields that tend to be used by visiting geese. Eight Whoopers sangsvane, small flocks of Redwing rødvingetrost and a Rock Pipit skjærpiplerke were among the other stuff seen here.

An equally quick look at Solberg gave a small flock of Purple Sandpipers fjæreplytt, a couple of White-tailed Eagle havørn, a Gannet havsule , around 25 Long-tailed Duck havelle and another Greylag grågås..


No comments: