Monday, January 03, 2022

Øygarden 03 January 2022 - Better than the New Year's Bird Race?

I started the day late and lazy, although this was nothing to do with the wet and windy conditions during the first part of the morning. A fantastic selection of birds given the fact that it is early January.

At Hellesøy a nice Little Grebe dvergdykker fished in a sheltered area - a species I did not see in Øygarden last year but which at least used to be quite a regular winter visitor here.


Little Grebe dvergdykker at Hellesøy

Next up was Breivik where the Pinkfoot kortnebbgås and it's two accompanying Greylag grågås companions seemed to have recovered from their firework trauma. Nearby an unseasonal Woodpigeon ringdue flew over. A few Starling stær joined the 120 or so Fieldfare gråtrost feeding in the fields.

Pinkfoot kortnebbgås with two Greylags grågås

Hoping that something may have been blown into Solberg I popped in there. First bird I saw was a Knot polarsnipe - an extremely rare bird in the winter months, only the third January record for the county and the first away from Herdla. A Rock Pipit skjærpiplerke here was the first I have seen this year.



Knot polarsnipe - a very good January record and would have been greatly appreciated just yesterday:)

At Adnevika a Mistle Thrush duetrost joined Fieldfares gråtrost and Redwings rødvingetrost feeding in the fields.

Good numbers of thrushes and Bramblings bjørkefink pretty much everywhere.




Out in Øygarden there is little in the way of ringing so any colour ringed gulls often come from somewhere else - always interesting to see where they came from.

At least one colour ringed Herring Gull gråmåke was present at Dåvøy a couple of days ago. Today I entered the details and this 3cy bird was ringed in Møre og Romsdal some 180 km further north. This is the first sighting away from the area in which it was ringed:)

3cy Herring Gull gråmåke from Møre og Romsdal and now spending time in Øygarden


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