Most expected national firsts

 

Which species will be the next one to be X’ed?

So far “only” 327 species have been recorded on the Faroe Islands. Birdwatching has never been and is still not an activity that many take part in. People in general are very interested in birds, but looking for small brown warblers or shorebirds is not a popular hobby.

The only regular “birding effort” during the last many years has been the heligoland trap on Nólsoy, where species like Paddyfield Warbler, Green Warbler, Radde’s Warbler and Melodious Warbler have been caught.

Other than that most birding has been rather random with groups visiting every now and then – and tourists or locals finding weird things – like an Amur Falcon photographed with an Iphone on the stairs,  a Scops Owls hit by a car or a Blue-cheeked Bee-eater caught on a trawler or catch an Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross caught during long-line fishery.

It is hard to say which record is the best Faroese record, but besides the above mentioned Sandhill Crane, Needled-tailed Swift, Lesser Kestrel, Common Nighthawk, Black-and-white Warbler, Tennessee Warbler and the american subspecies of Long-legged Buzzard are surely some of them.  But probably the Amur Falcon is the weirdest record so far.

But just how random the records are can clearly be seen by looking at the birds not recorded yet. My personal top eleven of most likely national firsts are (in random order):

Bewick’s Swan

American Golden Plover

Spotted Sandpiper

Lesser Yellowlegs

Black-throated Thrush

Short-toed Lark

Lanceolated Warbler

Dusky Warbler

Hume’s Leaf Warbler

Booted Warbler

Red-eyed Vireo

 

Now let’s see what the autumn brings.

Silas