21st May

A great, flat calm day with varying amounts of cloud cover coming and going; it was the busiest morning in the nets so far this spring with 47 new birds caught including another influx of 25 Lesser Redpolls along with 2 Twite, 3 Garden Warblers, 2 Lesser Whitethroats, 2 Swallows and 4 Whitethroats while there were 2 Wrynecks and a Cuckoo around the lighthouse through the morning but they managed to avoid all the nets!    There were a few bits on the sea as well including a Black-throated Diver and a Great-northern Diver with 140 Red-throated Divers, 5 Tufted Ducks, 9 Velvet Scoters, a Purple Sandpiper and a trickle of hirundines heading north at sea.   There were now 4 Gadwall on Vågsvollvåien.

                A walk out across the fields to Groda then produced 2 Dotterel on the Vågsvoll field, my first 2 Red-backed Shrikes of the year near the Radiomastene (probably the returning pair which bred there last year), another 5 Cuckoos (including 4 together in Lebeltet), 5 Sedge Warblers in Gunnarsmyra and at least 50 Swifts overhead.

 

Slinky Minky goes fishing

These Tree Sparrows went right over to the Mute Swans nest to collect this prime nest-building feather but then just let it go and watched it float away!

Painted Lady