I spent much of my fathers leave in the autumn of 2009 birding behind a stroller or with a child carrier on my back. Both the birding and the weather was good in the period, and 20 October we stumbled across our best find during the six weeks leave, an American Golden Plover!
The American Golden Plover Pluvialis dominica is a major rarity in Norway, and this young individual became the 11th. national record. The bird showed well at the bird sanctuary Herdla, an hour drive from Bergen in western Norway from 20 October until 5 November. It was the first record in Hordaland county, the latest ever in Norway, and only the third first calendar year bird to be found in the country. The bird became a popular target for twitchers, with birders from many corners of Norway visiting.
Finding and identifying the bird was one thing, but getting documentation of it with a 11 month diper-boy in the stroller was harder. I found myself a sheltered corner of the field where it stayed. After an hour or so, it eventually came close enough for me to get some decent digiscoping shots. The pictures of the bird on the ground were digiscoped with a Swarowski AT80HD scope and a Nikon coolpix 4500 at a distance of about 100 meters.
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