The Last Cruise Ship
The last cruise ship of the season was yesterday (09/08) with the last port of call being Bergen and a half day trip to Herdla on the program. We arrived at about 9 o’clock and made our way out to Prestvika. Scanning the fjord we soon picked out a lone male Velvet Scoter amongst the 40 or so Common Eider. These were soon joined by a flock of Red-breasted Merganser so the group had enough to study. The tide was low and small flocks of waders started to fly in and join the already present European Oystercatcher, Ringed Plovers and Northern Lapwings. 11 Eurasian Curlew flew over, followed by 5 Bar-tailed Godwit. The Curlews flew on, but the Bar-tailed Godwits landed and started to feed. The next waders to land was a small flock of European Golden Plover and 2 Ruff, while a larger flock of Ruff continued flying out towards Valen. While walking out towards Valen a White-tailed Eagle flew over, putting the gulls and geese into the air before we had time to check through the flocks. It looked like the gull flock consisted mostly of Herring with one or two Common Gull and Greater Black-backs. While the geese flock consisted mostly of Canada Geese and small numbers of Greylag Geese, not that Greylag numbers were low, during the time we spent at Herdla at least 300 birds past over our heads heading south. Passerine numbers were low with Meadow Pipit being the commonest. Several Rock Pipit were recorded along the shoreline as well as a single Northern Wheatear. Other than that the only other interesting species was a Carrion Crow, an uncommon species here in the west of Norway. It was soon time to head back to the ship. If it is one thing I have learned while guiding on cruise ships is don’t arrive back late and get the captain angry. I said my good-bye's to the group and made my way home to Voss. It was good to arrive home, while passing Lake Seim, I could see that water levels were still high. However, I will be spending the next two weeks here at Voss before I leave for the bird of prey migration at Falsterbo in Sweden.
