Birding with my buddies

Yesterday was a windy day and Per Christian was keen to see the sea. We positioned ourselves at Krokstrand and could feel the wind and see the white tops to the waves but initially couldn’t see any birds. I had expected lots of auks to be on the move but maybe all the ones that were around had already been blown in last week as we only saw around 50 Guillemots (flying both ways) and a couple of Razorbills in nearly three hours. After a while though we saw our first Kittiwake though and eventually this proved to bird of the day. 65 headed north with some of them also returning south and we had a few flocks of 6-7 birds and one of 12. They allowed themselves to be taken by the wind and headed north quickly doing high arches over the water. Only one bird was an adult which was unusual. Further south of us there were reports of single Max Shearwater, Pomarine Skua and Great Skua but interestingly fewer Kittiwakes. Otherwise, we had nothing else to write home (or blog) about.

On the way home we checked out a few other places and had a tight flock of 10 Kittiwakes heading south which included a single adult and would have been birds we saw earlier reorienting (the wind had really died off by this time). We also had a 1^st winter Little Gull feeding close offshore which we initially didn’t pay much attention to as assumed it was a Kittiwake..

 

Today, I met up with Conor and had a truly memorable meeting with Hawkie. With my addiction now seemingly cured it has been a while since I have a had a shot of Hawkie but I am still a recreational user and it is nice to share a shot with friends 😊

We got to see him at very close range and although we missed the actual kills we saw him twice with a vole. The first time he disappeared with the vole and we couldn’t relocate him but the second time we saw him moving around with the vole in his talons and an angry Great Spotted Woodpecker scolding him. I thought he was waiting for the pecker to go away so he cold eat in peace and was waiting to get a shot of the rodent sliding down his throat but the owl had other plans. Clearly life is so good just now however that he wanted to safely stow the vole away for later consumption. He flew from perch to perch with the vole and came much closer to us before he found a suitable larder and we saw him stuffing the vole into a cavity created by a broken branch and carefully pushing it in to make sure it was secure – fascinating to watch!

I spent a lot of time with the camera raised hoping to get some memorable shots and succeeded but also confirmed that I need to do some exercises to build up my arm muscles as I all too frequently had to lower the camera to take a pause. This time though things worked out in my favour and I am really pleased with the pictures I took, including flight shots, regurgitating a pellet and with vole in talons.

I first located Hawkie because a Hoodie was annoyed he was in his hood..

about to cough up a pellet

there it comes. "Better out than in, sir"

dropping

and still dropping

pretty happy with that!

and that

here it is in full stoop but I did not see if it was a succesful catch

but only about 5 minutes later and he had caught a vole but he disappeared before we saw what he did with it

this is with a new vole an hour later

he suddenly decided to fly closer to us

and here he is stuffing the vole into a cavity left by a broken branch

the mouse is highlighted and the owl is sitting off to the left

close up of the vole in the talons

and in the larder

10 Kittiwakes (krykkje) heading back south and out of the fjord after the wind abaited. 9 1st winters folled by an adult

1st winter Little Gull (dvergmåke)

they can easily be confused with Kittikwakes if you don't judge size and jizz correctly. One of the few plumage differences is the black smudge at the back of the armpit