Monday, February 22, 2021

Øygarden 21-22 February 2021 - Spring!

 The mild and windy weather continues.

Before work on 21.02 I did my usual round at Herdlevær picking up nothing in particular but nice to see that at least one Rock Pipit skjærpiplerke survived the cold spell. A flock of 15 Merganser siland was one of the larger flocks I've seen so far this winter. The best sighting here was at least one Porpoise nise feeding right in the surf below my usual coffee place - though it was only visible very briefly at the surface.

Quite an obvious movement of large gulls noted both here and at home

Great Black-backed Gull svartbak

Shag toppskarv - one of last year's birds by the look of things

Before I left the house, and before the sun came up four White-tailed Eagles havørn turned up and I just managed to get all four in the same shot:) A Sparrowhawk spurvehauk also made a pass over the garden.

Three White-tailed Eagles havørn at dawn - photographed from my terrace

then four....

Others were out and about and reported Lapwing vipe at Breivik and Wigeon brunnakke at Solberg.

My pre-work outing on 22.02 predictably went to both Breivik and Solberg where I spectacularly failed to see either of yesterday's newcomers.

However, all was far from lost as Breivik produced a Skylark sanglerke and Solberg a nice male Stonechat svartstrupe. Both these observations tie in well with an obvious influx of both species along the south and west coast of Norway during the last few days.


Male Stonechat svartstrupe at Solberg

An obvious arrival of Starling stær has occurred with more and larger flocks present at more places than during the winter. It looks like the first returning Greylags grågås are also back (as opposed to the winter visitors that have been seen on and off). 

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