After my sighting of the Jack Snipe at Fornebu on Sunday afternoon I returned on Monday hoping to repeat the experience and hopefully record it digitally better than had the day before. I made sure all batteries, including the spare, were fully charged and had high hopes. Scanning the edge of the reedbed on a rising tide revealed initially only a single Common Snipe but soon I could see there were other birds further in. They took a long time to reveal themselves properly but in the end there were 6 Common Snipe although in the initial glimpses deep within the reeds I had (very) tentatively identified Jack Snipe, Spotted Crake and Water Rail….
Even if Jack was not allowed out to play there was a very good selection of other waders with 3 Black-tailed Godwits, 2 Grey Plover and 2 Greenshank showing well. A male Goshawk flew casually over at one point with a few Crows loudly following it. After having passed over the waders (which surprisingly) hadn’t flown off it then suddenly flipped over and dived down. A Greenshank narrowly avoided its talons and all the waders took flight whilst the hawk flew into some trees to consider its next move.
 |
| Black-tailed Godwit (svarthalespove) - all three birds are juveniles of the icelandic subspecies |
 |
| hiding a Greenshank (gluttsnipe) |
 |
| juvenile Grey Plover (tundralo) |
 |
| a juvenile Common Gull (fiskemåke) that momentarily thought a toothbrush might be food |
 |
| Common Snipe (enkeltbekkasin) |
 |
| the Goshawk (hønsehauk) - a male due to relatively small size - flying slowly over and looking down |
 |
| here it suddenly flips over and dives |
 |
| a Greenshank avoided its talons |
 |
| as did the Blackwits |
 |
| the mixture of brown feathers shows the bird to be moulting out of juvenile plumage and is a 2cy |
 |
| on the fjord there were hundreds of gulls and Cormorants in a feeding frenzy. There were clearly lots of small fish and I thought maybe I would see something larger that was driving them to the surface but I didn't. Neither did I see any rarer gulls, terns or skuas in the flock |
 |
| Greenshank |
 |
| juvenile Grey Plovers can look a lot like Golden Plovers (heilo) but the black armpits are diagnostic if seen |
 |
| zooming out |
 |
| rarest bird of the day was this Coot (sothøne) which was my first ever Fornebu record |
No comments:
Post a Comment