OSLO BIRDER: Værøy 2023 Day 4

Sunday, 24 September 2023

Værøy 2023 Day 4

As it turned out Day 3 was not over when I blogged yesterday evening. I decided to go out with the thermal imager at 2130 and didn’t get back until 0030!!

First I found feeding Common Snipe, Jack Snipe and Golden Plover. Then I noticed the northern lights above me, then I started hearing nocmig (Redwing, Song Thrush, Snow Bunting and Reed Bunting) and then I joined in Storm Petrel ringing. It was a very succesful session with me seeing what I thought was an impressive 13 birds but the session carried on until 5am with 44 caught including 4 with Norwegian rings from before.

I was then buzzing a bit too much and couldn’t sleep until gone 2am and was awake at 7 so am rather tired now. BUT today m, or at least the early morning, has been a good day. When you walk out the door and the first bird that greets you is a clearly newly arrived Yellow-browed then you know the day has potential. New birds were discovered in quick succession with a Little Bunting, an Olive-backed Pipit and then a Red-flanked Bluetail all before breakfast. It felt natural to assume that once we searched more of the island as the day wore on that we would find something big. But in fact there was precious little to see after that. Two Grey-headed Woodpeckers were decent enough but not of the calibre that the morning glory had promised.

Red-flanked Bluetail (blåstjert). As can be seen this bird was caught and ringed (in a mist nest). Not quite as cool as finding one in the field but a great chance to see it up close