Some one turned the tap off; no more crossbills or other interesting birds near my flat anymore…
The last 2 days saw beautiful weather with a few birds around west of town. I was waiting for a Red-necked Grebe in summer plumage to come close. It didn’t but some of its common relatives did.
A few birds from the big park near my place this afternoon. The first time I’ve seen the above species there; there were also a few common duck species. No crossbill photos today but there was a flock high up.
It was raining all the way home…we stopped at a few spots.
There were some grebes in one of the local ports…
Lots of Scaup on the sea, flocks of Pintail arriving from the south, Great Cormorants in breeding plumage…the snow is melting and spring is coming.
Not many eagles at Yakumo now sadly…
And not much else around to be honest. Some interesting ducks on the sea were too far off for photos. I also missed a couple of great photo opps (a bathing Peregrine, a feeding roadside Steller’s). Just one of those days.
I stood on one of the harbour walls near Oshamanbe and there were lots of birds on the sea: Red-throated Diver, Long-tailed Duck, Black and Stejneger’s Scoters, 3 species of grebe…
And the flock of Sanderling that seems to overwinter in this spot did a nice fly-by.
In addition to the Slavonian Grebe there were also half a dozen Black-Neckeds and several Great Crested Grebes in the same port.
I headed up to Yakumo yesterday and was amazed to find virtually no Eagles. Only about 6 or so, they’ve eaten all the Salmon they could find and have gone. I was very surprised: in the 19 or so winters I’ve been going up there, this is by far the earliest they’ve dispersed.
Not much else around there either. On the way back one of the ports at least had a few common birds like the above Harlequin and this Great Crested Grebe.
Today we went east of town to the Hawk-Eagle spot and there were 2 of them. This is an immature.
Other stuff around included White-tailed Eagle, Black-legged Kittiwake, Black-necked grebe and Peregrine.
The Waxwings were still in town this morning and I saw some in Yakumo and Esan this weekend too.
I was in Oshamanbe on Sunday in very mild spring (!) weather. We were looking for Long-tailed Ducks or the 2 Scoter species but they were well offshore. The above Black-throated Diver came a bit closer. There were also several Black-necked Grebes and this lone Great-crested Grebe.
