Lots of sea and a few birds to see

Ever the optimists Per Christian and I were at Hulvik at 0820 before it was even truly light. The wind was strong and from the SW as predicted and we knew some good birds had been not too fat to the south yesterday so our hopes were high. As the light improved we were however disappointed to see very little other than waves. The first hour was in fact very quiet with 9 Velvet Scoters and a few Little Auks the only excitement. Then at 0920 we had a really good bird with a monster of a Great Northern Diver heading south at reasonably close range. Unfortunately we picked it up a bit late so couldn’t enjoy this local major rarity as much as we would have liked but it gave us enough energy to keep going. The volume of birds picked up a bit after this with a total of 3 Kittiwakes and another 20 or so Little Auks most of which were heading south although a few also went the other way.

We were sea watching from under the cover of a small pine tree which hosted 3 Goldcrests for much of our vigil. At one stage I had a bird less than a metre over my head and was just centimetres away from being able to grab it with my hand. I was able to take some passable pictures of these little gems although the bad light took some shine off the final result.

Goldcrest