Tried today the BBP in strong easterly winds and cold circumstances. Could not find that one, neither did anybody else, so it is probably gone. Goodies, however, were a flyby Waxwing and a Jack Snipe.
Afterwards tried Herdlevær. Not many birds there... I met Julian Bell, who told me he had seen a stonechat, which disappeared. Together we succeeded in finding it back. It was a light bird, but we kept it at the time as being a normal Stonechat, primarly because the lack of an obvious eyebrow. It had a pale rump, but we were not able to see the exact patterns of the rump. A good bird for Hordaland. It was twitched by some Bergen birders.
However, close inspection of the pictures later on the day revealed that it was a Siberian Stonechat
Saxicola maura after all. Julian's pictures showed that it had a large light-orange rump without any spots. On other pictures one can see a light throat and a light eyebrow, albeit not very obvious (this varies within the species). The eyebrows meet over the bill, as visible on the pictures below. Another good character is the lack of any (dark) spotting on the undertail coverts.
In other words, another good bird for this autumn!
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| Difficult to judge exactly, but on this picture you can see a bit of the winglenght.The primary projection seems too long for a Stonechat... |
