Sandness Havn No. 2

This time I managed to drag both of the kiddoes out for a spot of birdwatching at Sandness Havn. Aisya took along her breadcrumbs to feed the hungry ducks while Ali decided to bring along his PnS digital camera which has probably seen the light of day twice if not less.

The three of us of course each has completely different agenda today : Aisya to escape Mommy's chore day, Ali to make up the MacD lunch that he missed last week and Daddy to get better capture of the Goldeneye. Sometime in the unexpectedly cold minus 3 degree C temperatures, we managed to overlap our different agendas with some family birdwatching ... close-up views of the basking (not sure if basking qualifies here, though it was sunny, it's -3 deg C!) cormorant, dashing views of the ducks, coots and swans.

Not so good video quality of the Goldeneye on FB.

 Greater Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) / Storskarv

Greater Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) / Storskarv

Videograb of the Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) / Kvinand

Sandness Havn at minus 3 deg C.

Nazeri Abghani/Mar 2013.

Scaup at Stavanger Sentrum

While waiting for the start of "Tax in Norway" presentation at the Rosenkilden, we were loitering near the edge of the water sipping in the glow of dusk Wednesday evening. There were several swans and a couple of Mallards in the water.

Just by the side of the concrete embankment, another duck was busy foraging the surface of the water. Looks larger than a female Tufted Duck, it was going about it's business without any cares of the folks passing by or the of the swans milling about.

A new duck for me, Scaup, Aythya marila. Of course with many of such a thing, I did not carry a camera with me, at not one suitable of such bird pictures I am used to. Here's the Scaup on the HTC android ...

Scaup (Aythya marila) looking for dinner.

 

 

Nazeri Abghani/Mar2013



Lazy birding at Sandness Havn

This Sunday, I managed to convinced my daughter to go birding with me. The only catch : we have to go feed the ducks at Breavatnet, take the train down to Sandness and then a Mac Donald's lunch ... well, three catches. A small price to pay to spend a couple of hours with my smallest favourite birder.

We went feeding the birdies at Breavatnet right about 1100 hrs. Other than the regular long haired senior hippy hand feeding pigeons, seagulls and ducks, we were about the only other humans with breadcrumbs. Aisya picked and chose who got them. The Tufted Duck (must be around 50 of them in the lakes) were aggressively fighting with one another as well as the Common Coot (they made the loudest noise second only to the gulls).

Mallard, Tufted Duck and Common Coot in the same frame.

We finished up the bag of stale bread, which otherwise would end up as next weekend's bread pudding, in record time.

We quickly headed out to Sandness via the lokaltog and arrived Sandness Sentrum 12 minutes later, NOK90 for my return tickets while Aisya travelled free ... convenient is an understatement.

While driving around the area earlier last Friday, we spotted quite a number of out feathered friends gathered at the havn and have decided then for a revisit. Though today there weren't as many of them swimming around (as is always when you actually planned things), we spotted quite a few of our favourites : Muted Swan, Tufted Duck, Common Eider, Great Cormorant, Goldeneye, Common Coot, Mallard and Crested Grebe. Aisya spent a big portion of her time communing with one swan which decided to preen close to us on land.

Greater Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) / Storskarv drying up.

Common Eider (Somateria mollissima)/Aerfugl

Crested Grebe (Podyceps cristatus)/ Toppdykker

We picked a perfect spot for making videos of the birds around us right at the wooden landing by the harbour, and collected decent footage of the birds using the Leica and Sony-SLT33 setup. There were people passing by around us but they all kept a respectable distance ... they left us in peace!

My not so small anymore baby birder!

Nazeri Abghani/Mar2013.