Friday 23 December 2011

Back in Newfoundland

I had planned to write a summary blog post for Denmark but I didn't have time while flying...

Nevertheless, here's a quick video I put together from Norway (September) that has nothing to do with birds:



Anyway, today I did a brief search for Newfoundlands 9th record of Red-bellied Woodpecker (and the first for St. John's) without success. I'll be back though...

I'm more keen on working on my year list now though. There are about ten birds I haven't seen in Canada yet this year that I could get over the next week.
In somewhat decreasing likelihood:

Common Gull, Tufted Duck, Great Cormorant (actually I saw it today at Cape Spear), Eurasian Wigeon, Purple Sandpiper, WW Crossbill, Red Crossbill, Dovekie, Yellow-legged Gull, Willow Ptarmigan...


A brief visit to Cape Spear yielded a small flock of 6 Scoters very close to shore. 3 each of White-winged and Surf. If the Surf Scoters stick around until Monday they'll be the first record for the St. John's CBC - and I guess this was the first record for the CBC count week [CBC Records, 1966-2011]. ...and the first record of White-winged Scoter between 49 and 56 hours before the CBC date [Intuition, 2011]...

Distant shot of a female WW Scoter with male Surf Scoter from today:

There's a snow storm coming tonight - hopefully it will concentrate birds around the feeders (namely the Red-bellied Woodpecker) and also nice because I won't see snow again until next winter when I leave NL.