Sunday 23 August 2015

23rd August


Lovely at first light with clear skies and a very light breeze but this lasted less than two hours as the easterly wind soon grew to a strong force 7!   Single Tree Pipit and Spotted Flycatchers were caught in the small weather window while offshore another 500 Greylag Geese were encouraged to move in the light winds along with a few waders, 3 Red-throated Divers, 2 Velvet Scoters and 5 Arctic Terns; a few raptors started to move first thing with 4 Kestrels and 7 Sparrowhawks going south but the best was a Goshawk which came in low across the sea and inland but the increasing wind stopped any bigger numbers.

                There was a general increase in White Wagtails and Meadow Pipits around the lighthouse along with a handful of Yellow Wagtails and Tree Pipits before birds inland included 8 Spotted Flycatchers, 4 Pied Flycatchers, 2 Redstarts, 33 Whinchats and the female Goshawk still while there were two Spotted Redshanks in Verevågen.

- The orange flagged Dunlin I saw in Sevika a few days ago was indeed ringed on Svalbard as a juvenile in 2012 and had been seen in France in May this year.
 
Goshawk


A Sparrowhawk pulling some ridiculous shapes as it was chasing some Wagtails, it looks like the photos should be rotated around but these were the actual angles it was using!  Flying sideways while looking the opposite direction is very impressive!

Redstart

White Wagtail

Yellow Wagtail

Brimstone
 

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