The much-anticipated gale arrived, huge westerlies thrashing the sea into a maelstrom. I had to fit several short sessions in around my domestic duties but although I missed a lot of birds, my species tally at the end of the day was OK. Many birders had come to BK from a great distance and they like I were probably slightly disappointed, especially when the news of a great shearwater on neighbouring Kullaberg hit in the mid afternoon (great shearwater is an extreme mega here). I made one 'greenhorn' error, the seas were so big I should have gone to Hovs Hallar to get on higher ground, there is a reason everyone heads there after all! Yttre Kattvik is right next door but you are almost at sea-level there and we failed to pick up a huge number of birds today that were spotted at neighbouring Hovs Hallar.
Anyhow, I started the day with a pre-breakfast session at Yttre Kattvik, the easy highlight was a close adult pomarine skua just before I headed home. Probably my best view in Sweden. Also on the move small numbers of pintail, common scoter, ringed plover, knot, dunlin, whimbrel, tirnstone and lesser black-backed gull.
An hour and 20 minutes later I was back at Yttre Kattvik, having missed little in my absence. Alarm bells were ringing but I stuck it out, what amazed me most about the day was the lack of gannets and appreciable numbers of kittiwake. It is so hard to second-guess what will turn up in a given gale. Gannets have been in short supply all year for some reason.
This second session produced my first Arctic skua of the day, as well as a single kittiwake (1K) and at least 10 1K little gulls. I got itchy feet later and tried Båstad for a couple of hours. There was nothing obvious stuck in the corner, just a couple more Arctic skuas and two more 1K little gulls.
My last session of the day was at Ripagården, in the teeth of the gale. I hunkered down in the lee of the northernmost bunker and finally got gannet (2) for the year! Also here incredible views of two great skuas as they steamed past together and two more kittiwake (1K).
So at the end of the day I had not done too badly, dipping Manx shearwater and long-tailed skua but doing OK.
No comments:
Post a Comment