Sea Duck

A day trip to the north Sjaelland coast for sea duck delivered mixed fortunes. When I arrived at dawn it was a beautifully clear dawn with a fantastic low sun behind me as I looked north. However, as soon as I reached the ideal viewing spot and began to scan the flocks of sea duck on the bay, the mist rolled in and visibility was reduced to around 100 metres, meaning I was left staring at what looked like a polar bear in a snowstorm. Added to this, the temperature plummeted from an already cold -3 to about -6! A walk around the woodland at Melby failed to produce any Parrot Crossbills (a party of around 20 have been seen regularly here) so I walked along the north coast path towards Kikhavn, a small harbour town. On the way, at around 1300 and after having seen nothing, the mist cleared and it turned into a beautiful afternoon. So I walked back to the bay and spent the last hour of light scanning the flocks of sea duck. There were 100s of Eider plus small flocks of GOLDENEYE, RED-BREASTED MERGANSER and about 50 Scoter. The most numerous scoter was VELVET SCOTER with smaller numbers of COMMON SCOTER. Unfortunately there was no sign of this. A flock of 14 WHOOPER SWANS flew west and then a single LONG-TAILED DUCK flew in and began feeding just offshore. Given the lack of sea duck present on my local patches, both Velvet Scoter and Long-tailed Duck were new species for me here, bringing the total number of species seen in Denmark to an almost respectable 211.