Dull, murky and breezy for
most of the day but there were some good birds around; the nets were
disappointingly quiet but the sea was productive with 8 Arctic Skuas, my first
3 Bonxies of the year, 15 Arctic
Terns, 2 Fulmars, 9 Kittiwakes, 20 Tufted Ducks south, 13 Red-breasted
Mergansers, 15 Dunlin and a Tystie with the numbers made up of 299 Red-throated
Divers and 296 Gannets.
A walk round the coast at lunchtime then produced 2
Dotterel out on Steinodden, a drake Pintail, 6 Barnacle Geese flying around, a
Greenshank, the first Turnstone of the spring, 20 Whimbrel at Karveneset, 5
Common Sandpipers and hundreds of hirundines low over the water in the damp
murk. Mirroring the nets from this
morning the plantations were pretty quiet with 2 Wrynecks, 10 Whinchats, a Pied Flycatcher, a Redstart, 9
Whitethroats, 6 Lesser Whitethroats, a slightly unseasonal Mistle Thrush and 5
Tree Pipits.
After a couple hours of heavy rain mid-afternoon I
headed back out with the undoubted highlight being a monster flock of 51 DOTTEREL on the usual field at Vågsvoll
– by far the largest flock I’ve ever seen! Other birds included 3 Garganey, the drake Gadwall, a Bar-tailed Godwit and a Grey-headed
Wagtail in Vagsvollvaien, 2 Wood Sandpipers and another Turnstone in Vågsvollvika,
2 more Wood Sandpipers, 12 Blue-headed Wagtails and 3 singing Sedge Warblers in
Gunnarsmyra and finally the first Swift
of the year over Lebeltet – a great spring day with 93 species seen!
Wood Sandpiper
Turnstone
Whimbrel and Barnacle Geese along the coast
Garganey
Probably just a 1st summer male Grey-headed Wagtail but it has got an abnormal amount of white on the throat
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