Monday, July 06, 2020

Øygarden 03-05 July 2020 - Time to get a hunting license.....

Spending most of my time trying to get caught up with house stuff, sawing and splitting logs etc, but still out and about to a certain degree most days.

The Rosy Starling rosenstær has predictably proved popular with twitchers from town and has been seen daily since I found it - although disappears for long periods of time.

I finally made the effort to catch up with a Wryneck vendehals pair that are breeding in a nestbox having ousted the previous occupants.

During wet weather on 05 July I checked out a few localities. The Common Tern makrellterne colony at Dåvøy remains abandoned - although I am not certain it would be easy to point the finger at mink being the reason behind this. However, a small Arctic Tern rødnebbterne colony surprisingly remains active at Tjeldstø with adults coming in with food regularly. At least one pair of Common Tern were among these.

Arctic Terns rødnebbterne with young


The Common Tern pair at Nautnes have a well grown chick but it is not yet on the wing. There have been only a couple of pairs at this locality - so it is puzzling that these have got so far whilst a larger colony has failed......

Some Lapwings vipe have fully fledged young - it seems the birds at Kollsnes may have managed to raise some young and moved over to better feeding at Breivik where another pair probably has very small young. At Breivik a Woodcock rugde flew over despite it being the middle of the day.


This adult was actively warning some young hidden in the grass at Breivik

One of the Lapwing chicks at Husvatnet, Tjeldstø - only a few tens of metres from a hunting mink

At Tjeldstø there was at least one Lapwing chick - seems to be growing fast and hopefully it will be fast enough. Just after I photographed this agitated Common Gulls fiskemåke drew my attention to a mink obviously looking for eggs or chicks in the reserve. Without my dog I am now evaluating going through the process of obtaining a hunting license so I can shoot these things....

Wish it was something other than a camera I shot this with......



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