Ruff for the year

At Flesland a group of six Ruffs was still present. 135th bird for the year in Bergen.

Robin at Skogsøy last week

Tveitevannet, gulls and ducks

Checked the gulls at Tveitevannet this morning. With Pallas's Gull in Oslo in mind, an inspiring thing to do, but nothing special today. Mostly Common Gulls and a few Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls and of course the usual Mallards and Tufted Ducks...

juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull

juvenile Herring Gull

eclipse male Mallard

Herdla

Guided a dutch birder (Mark Eising) on Herdla today. As expected lots of waders with many Ruffs, Golden Plovers, Ringed Plovers, Redshanks, Dunlins and a few Eurasian Curlews, but not any special birds though two fine juvenile Little Stints showed very well.
At Ravnanger we saw a Nutcracker flying over the car.

juvenile Little Stint

Seawatch...

Just had to try this morning and did an hour or so sea watching at Herdlevær. Suppose the strong wind was from the wrong direction (north), because the only species I saw were Northern Gannets (ca 100) and Greater Black-backed Gulls. Circumstances were rather difficult due to the very strong wind and I was alone, so it could well be that that there was more about than I saw...I'll have another try next week for some shearwaters if I'm lucky...
Further at Herdlevær a nice group of Starlings, a young Whinchat, three Northern Wheatears among others. A very quick look at Tjeldstø only resulted in seeing the Bar-headed Geese, which are present for a long time already.

Bergen year list

After a lull of almost two months I had a new bird for the year for Bergen. A stroll on Flesland gård in steady rain produced two Eurasian Curlews, comprising 134 bird species so far in 2014 (by the way, only the second sighting for me of this species in Bergen). Further a group of eighteen Greylag Geese.
Missed the best bird this summer, a Sanderling on Nordnes...

Herdla, lots of waders

This morning a trip to Herdla, which proved to be very well. Loads of waders, behaving rather nervous though. I think that most of the birds were already present for a few days, but two and a half our produced one Sanderling, three Wood Sandpipers, nine Greenshanks, two Little Stints, two Red Knots, two Ruddy Turnstones, five Grey Plovers, about 150 Ruffs, 100 Dunlins and about 100 Golden Plovers. Besides that a family of Shellducks, that probably bred somewhere around Herdla. Not bad at all. Think these numbers are due to the bad weather recently...