Tuesday 22 November 2011

Little Gull

Time for a bit of birding today. I spent sometime at Fornebu searching for the Shag (a real local rarity) that was seen yesterday but failed on that score. However I did find an adult Little Gull which is a pretty good record this far up the fjord. The bird was at first sat on the sea and didn't look so healthy but later flew around a lot and then looked very perky showing off its smart white overwing and black underwing.
Otherwise 19 Razorbills including a flock of 13 and only 4 Guillemots indicating that many have either died or hopefully found there way out of the fjord. 34 Common Scoters and 4 Velvet Scoters were the best of the ducks and a well marked male Sparrowhawk briefly perched and showed itself off.


Then off to Sørkedalen where I had thought to go searching for woodpeckers again but the forest was covered in freezing fog so I lost my interest quite quickly. However the fields were under the fog so I tried for the Bean Geese that have been seen here and succeeded. Just a single bird present rather than the 10 seen on Saturday. This is quite a strange location for Bean Geese but the stubble field which has attracted them is presumably rich in split corn.
Taiga Bean Goose
This bird wasn't straightforward to assign to race but I believe that even though there is little orange on the bill that this is a Taiga (fabalis) Bean Goose based on the bill being long, no grinning patch  and narrow lower mandible plus there being some white around the bill.



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