Monday, 30 November 2015

Field Sparrow & Summer Tanager

Sunday morning started off great with my best bird of the trip: a rare Field Sparrow. My first sighting of this species in the province, 

The sun hadn't fully risen and I was in a dark valley when I found this bird so the photos were taken at 1/15th of a second! Blurrrry

Only about the 10th record for the island, and the first since 2009?


The other highlight for the day was the continuing Summer Tanager:

Later in the day the snow started to fall and the wind picked up making birding a difficult task. I decided to walk one of the beaches after hearing about recent finds of whale bones in the area.

I wasn't really expecting much, so I was quite surprised when I came across this vertebrae from a whale's back:

Nearby was a deceased gannet

A Lapland Longspur was playing hard to see with a small flock of Snow Buntings along the beach:

The longspur and buntings were busy feeding on seeds from the grasses that grow on the sandy beach:




Click for larger view of the Table Mountains that are in the tanagers neighbourhood: