
After spending half an hour on the ferry, accompanied with Meshuggah on max volume and some appropriate refreshments, we arrived Fedje. We met up with the other nerds, and spent the evening to prepare our notebooks, minds and other gear for the coming day. Saturday was a bit windy at times, but during the afternoon conditions became rather good. There were lots of birds around, with good numbers of Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Great Spotted Woodpeckers. The latter with an all time high at Fedje with at least 30 individuals. Sunday was weatherwise worse than Saturday, but some good birding was carried out after the rain and wind had terrorised most of the morning.
We ended up with nearly 80 bird species, which was quite a decent number in the rather harsh weather conditions. The highlights were Little Grebe, Peregrine, Jack Snipe, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Dick's Pipit, Ring Ouzel, late Spotted and Pied Flycatchers, a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers, a putative Siberian Chiffchaff, nearly 30 Two-barred Crossbills and a first winter Scarlet Rosefinch. The island did also get a new non-flying species during the weekend, namely a Lehmannia marginata. All in all a great weekend, with everything being as it should be in early October - and not much more, except for the Siberian Chiffchaff.
Notes on identification of the Siberian Chiffchaff
The bird at Fedje was located while feeding in some shrubbery. It was very active, and gave a greyish brown overall impression. It was quite approachable and gave nice views. I was searching for yellow tones in the bird, but was not able to see any in the head region or on the underparts. When it flashed its wings, some yellow was observed on the axillaries and underwing coverts. The bill was jet-black, with only some yellow on the inner part of the cutting edges - possibly only on the upper mandible. The legs were also jet-black including the toes, but a hint of brighter soles appear in a few pictures.
With these field marks observed we suspected it could be a pure tristis. When the bird kindly provided us with its call, a rather thin and straight "eeeep", we decided to call it a Siberian Chiffchaff.