Parrots, Brent & Gozza

I did stare at the sea yesterday – for a whole 5 hours! There was not the quantity of birds I had hoped for despite it blowing at upto 16m/s from the south but by the time I folded up my chair I had notched up a bit of quality. A young Sabine’s Gull at a range of 2km that slowly flew off to the south would have been much more welcome if it was at a tenth of the range but I was just about able to confirm the ID as I followed it for 5 minutes. A Great Northern Diver, Puffin, a Gannet, 3 Fulmars and 11 Kittiwakes were also good local birds and the most numerous were Guillemot and Razorbills.

On the land I was sure I could hear a Firecrest calling behind my watchpoint but found only Goldcrests but a family group of 4 Parrot Crossbills showed much better.

Today I went to find Jack Snipe again with my thermal imager but the area which held 6 two weeks ago held none today suggesting that passage has been and gone. There was little else to see, in fact the only bird I picked up in the imager was a Reed Bunting, so when a message came through of a Brent Goose I thought what the heck and drove the 25 minutes to see it. It showed very well and you can wonder how it got there as it was an adult and all alone. A clearly unwell (probably sick rather than injured) Goshawk showed incredibly closely and seemed to be trying to hunt rodents/birds on the ground in the same way a Hawk Owl would.

adult male Parrot Crossbill (furukorsnebb) - a pretty large billed bird

unopened pine cones seem to be their favourite food

a juvenile male

adult female

the juv male holding a pine cone in its feet

adult dark-bellied Brent Goose (ringgås)

male Goshawk (hønsehauk). A sick bird. Judging by the rather heavy streaking I would say this is 1 2cy bird that has undergone its post juvenile moult

check out those claws

both wings drooped

but it could fly

here it was seemingly looking for prey on the ground like an owl

nictitating membranes

here it looks like there is a cell structure in the membrane unless it is a reflection of the branches of the tree