Tuesday 28 August 2012

No Sanderling

Few birds and bad light have meant I haven't had any good opportunities to try out the new lens yet. Yesterday I had a Cuckoo (gjøk) in Maridalen and a flock of 8 adult Black-throated Divers (storlom) feeding close together. The juvenile was also present but sat on its own. This morning I saw the youngster again attempting to dive but it doesn't seem to have got the knack of it yet and there was a lot of splashing but it didn't seem to be able to stay under for more than a couple of seconds.

At Fornebu I tried to find myself a Sanderling (sandløper) on one of the offshore islands. At 1030 I glimpsed a single Knot which was feeding on the other side of the island but nothing else. An hour and a half later Andreas was out on his boat and had a Sanderling, Ringed Plover (sandlo) and Redshank (rødstilk). A further hour and a half after that I viewed the island again but this time the tide had risen such that the island was nearly submerged and there was only a single Oystercatcher (tjeld) to be seen. Looks like I have two choices: buy a boat or give up on seeing Sanderling this year.
In Storøykilen a single 1k Common Tern (makrellterne) was feeding which is the first I have seen for a while. Terns and Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke) appear to have left the Oslo fjord much earlier than usual this year probably as a result of a poor breeding season.
There have been a couple of juvenile Med Gulls (svarthavsmåke) seen in Oslo over the last week with one having been ringed in Germany but I haven't been able to find either of them.

Strong southerly winds are forecast tonight which will hopefully result in some seabirds being blown up the Oslo fjord. We will see......what's on the sea.

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