The first full day on
Værøy was plagued with strong westerly winds and frequent showers in the
morning. Not exactly the conditions you hope for but we are not going to sit
inside feeling sorry for ourselves.
There was no viz mig to
talk about and birds were generally scarce but when you have Kjell Mjølsnes in
your “crew” (I absolutely hate that word but can’t think of anything better at
the moment…) then there will always be something. Kjell has an almost supernatural
talent for finding acros and locustellas and today he found a Blyth’s Reed. He
flushed it out of waist high vegetation and was confident of the ID just based
on flight views. In the end the bird was chivvied into a specially erected net
and the ID was confirmed although the bird was especially pallid in colour and
I had hoped for something even scarce based on the flight views I had. Blyth’s
Reed is always a cool bird but is in fact the only (and pretty much annual)
acro we have had on Værøy and a Marsh or Reed would be more welcome.
Otherwise there were a few
Snow Buntings and Twite, I flushed a Jack Snipe, had a Spotted Flycatcher (a Værøy first for me) and (only) a couple of
Yellow-browed Warblers. With the strong westerlies I thought a seawatch would
deliver the goods but gave up after 15 minutes when I hadn’t even seen a
Fulmar. So, a bad day on Værøy.
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| the net is being erected in the background and the BRW was in the vegetation in front |
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| Blyth's Reed Warbler (busksanger) |
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| the classic banana posture ;-) |
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| Two Golden Plovers but unfortunately just of the common or garden variety |
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| this flock of Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) have been feeding in gardens right up against the houses |
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| Snow Bunting (snøspurv) |
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| this one was in a garden |
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| late Spotted Flycatcher (gråfluesnapper) |
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| Twite (bergirisk) |
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