Hundested Havn

Today I visited the harbour town of Hundested, on the northern coast of Sjaelland. This meant taking the 40-minute train ride via the "S-tog" from Copenhagen to Hillerød and then 45 minutes on the regional train from Hillerød to Hundested. I arrived just as the cloud broke to reveal a gorgeous sunny, if a tad parky, day. The main reason for visiting this small harbour town was that there had been two birds reported here over the past weeks that I had not yet seen in Denmark - Purple Sandpiper and Iceland Gull. Checking the flocks of gulls for the 'Iceland' would also humour my new found interest in gulls, something that is worryingly becoming a passion of mine. Who'd have thought it - me, a larophile... ha ha..

Anyway, a thorough check of the harbour revealed a disappointing number of gulls - probably only around 100 - mostly Great Black Backed and Herring (including two yellow-legged Herring Gulls) with a few Common and Black-headed in amongst them. Unfortunately no sign of the Iceland Gull. Some compensation was the good number of Goosander in the harbour and I enjoyed watching these splendid 'sawtooths' (just check out the 'teeth' in the middle photo below) diving and feeding on the edge of the ice. A few sinensis Cormorants (the continental race of Cormorant - see here for how to compare the two races - not easy!) were loafing around and two Rock Pipits fed amongst the fishing boats. A look on the rocks eventually revealed a Purple Sandpiper, one of my target birds, probing around just out of reach of the waves. After watching it for around 10 minutes I did one final sweep of the harbour to look for the Iceland Gull. No sign. But I was rewarded with a flyover White-tailed Eagle that headed west over Roskilde Fjord and, in the last half an hour before my return train, a fishing boat came into harbour and the gulls feasted on the by-catch that was thrown overboard as the haul of what looked like plaice and other flatfish was taken ashore. There were a few squabbles between Goosander, which were adept at retrieving the small fish thrown overboard as they sank, and the Great Black Backed Gulls that proceeded to attempt to steal the fish as soon as the Goosander surfaced (I guess they can't swallow under water?).

A few Twite feeding on some weeds on a small area of waste ground constituted my last birds of the day.

Photos: Goosander; and a rather handsome sinensis Cormorant