Thursday 23 May 2013

Rain and rain and skua for others


Yet another day of torrential rain. I at least braved the conditions today in the company of Fernando but the camera stayed tucked away.
 
Maridalen delivered singing Rosefinch (rosenfink), Wryneck (vendehals) and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (dvergspett) but none of them actually showed themselves. A walk upto Dausjøen revealed the Whooper Swans (sangsvane) are still sitting on a nest which looks safe and dry so the pair I had on Maridalsvannet yesterday were clearly other birds.

We tried for the Rb Fly at Dælivannet in pouring rain at lunchtime but unsurprisingly it didn't show itself. The young Common Rosefinch was singing his heart out though.

Today is perhaps a story of what wasn't seen. In (as far as I can make out) easterly winds there was an enormous passage of Long-tailed Skuas (fjelljo) off the west coast of Norway and 10 were seen along with 20 Pomarine Skuas from Jeløy in the outer Oslofjord. Maybe something to check out tomorrow morning to see if there are any still around?

2 comments:

  1. http://valtjernstolen.net/others/Image 2013-05-23.png
    A windmap from this afternoon. That same low pressure laid there the entire day. What I think has happened is that migration along Great Britain has been a bit to rough, so many birds decided to follow the norwegian shoreline instead. It looks like the low pressure is already gone, so probably more normal conditions tomorrow.

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  2. There were also huge counts (1000+) of Long-tailed Skuas in Scotland on both Wednesday and Thursday (yesterday) so I think that they have just arrived en masse for some reason.

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