OSLO BIRDER: Værøy day 2

My first full day on Værøy 2013 has to be one I can be happy with.

Things started slowly as we checked the area around Nordland where we are staying and it was immediately apparent that many birds had moved on as there was hardly a Yellow-browed Warbler to be heard (or seen for that matter). This was a bit disappointing as the winds were from the east and there had been some rain just before dawn. However as it turned out some new birds had arrived even though a lot of other had left.

The day ended up for me with singles of Richard’s Pipit (tartarpiplerke), Olive-backed Pipit (sibirpiplerke), Red-flanked Buetail (blåstjert), male Red-breasted Flycatcher (dvergfluesnapper), 19 Yellow-browed Warblers, Barred Warbler (hauksanger) plus 3 Hawk Owls (haukugle) and 2 Tengmalm’s Owls (perleugle). Alongside these were 100’s of Ring Ouzels (ringtrost), many White-tailed Eagles (havørn), a single Golden Eagle (kongeørn) and a Peregrine (vandrefalk).

I was also very lucky today as I hardly missed anything but best of all I was also the finder of three of the days best birds: the Bluetail, Dick’s Pipit and R-b Fly.

I didn’t manage to get that many good photos today except for of the Tengmalm’s Owls. Kjell Mjølsnes texted to say he had found one but by the time I got there he had found two. They were ridiculously confiding as they roosted in small trees and the only problem we had initially was with the light as bright sunlight was illuminating one side of the most confiding bird. I tried using flash but that gave red-eye! Later though one bird moved and gave fantastic photos opportunities. I also discovered the remains of a bird (one leg and some feathers) in the branches right by one of the owls which turned out to be a Snow Bunting (snøspurv) and which most likely had been eaten by the owl.

Here are the best of photos that I’ve managed to look at so far but I took a couple of hundred of the owl plus some video so there will be probably be a separate post later in the autumn.