The Meeting
Today I had a meeting to attend. The thought of sitting in a meeting for most of the day didn’t seem promising at all. But as things turned out, it wasn’t too bad. The meeting took place at hotel overlooking a fjord, and I made an extra effort to secure a seat near one of the bay windows. With two eyes on the fjord and an ear following what was said, the meeting flew by. It helped that there were one or two birds to watch. A Great Northern Diver spent most of its time preening while the4 or 5 Great Cormorants that were about spent their time fishing. A fishing boat also passed by, followed by hundreds of gulls. Most of them looked like Herring as well as a few Great Black-backed, but what else was amongst them? Both Glaucous and Iceland had been seen in the area during the previous weeks, but there were just too many wings and a hopeless job without bins. The final species to make an entrance was an adult White-tailed Eagle. That soon put paid to the flocks of gulls that were hanging around. After the meeting was finished I decided to stretch my legs. There was still two hours of day light left so I headed to Herdla on the neighbouring island of Askøy. It was late in the day, something reflected in the lack of species and numbers. Checking the fjord produced another Great Northern Diver. Great Cormorants were also recorded, some fishing while others dried their plumage on a small island. A single Grey Heron spent its time fishing in the shallows while out on the fjord there was a good selection of waterfowl with Mallard, Long-tailed Duck, Velvet Scoter, Common Goldeneye and a few pairs of Red-breasted Merganser. Another bird to be seen on the fjord was a single Razorbill as well as one or two gulls. I say one or two because there wasn’t many compared to my last visit. Passerines were really thin on the ground. There were several Rock Pipit along the fjord, while a walk over the field produced a single Meadow Pipit. I also took time to check a small area of woodland and was rewarded with a Robin and a Crested Tit. All in all not a bad day considering most of my time was spent indoors.