Before I bore most of you with a butterfly post it is about
time with another catch up of local Oslo birding.
Hobbies are back in Maridalen and have clearly chosen a new
but yet to be discovered nest. I have seen a single Honey Buzzard over
Maridalen and the nest of the last two years has had green branches added to it
although no birds are on the nest yet.
The last Lapwing nest in Maridalen is now empty and I think
that the young have hatched due to the behaviour of the parents but the crop is
now too high to see. One evening whilst the nest was still occupied a fox with Lapwing
young on its mind walked through the field. I have a long video of the event
and the adults were very effective at attacking the fox and also calling their
young away.
The four Little Ringed Plover eggs have hatched and the
parents are doing a great job keeping them alive. They deserve a separate post
though as there is a lot to see with them.
Nocturnal singers are slowly increasing with at least 4
Marsh Warblers in Maridalen and a Nightjar in an unexpected location that
showed very well.
Arctic Terns remain on the lake including the 3cy bird with
the missing tail feather and it is fun watching them on every visit to the
lake.
A video of the Nightjar (nattravn) to start with
adult Lapwings (vipe)trying to chase off a fox whose back is just visible amongst the buttercups
j
this young Lapwing is nearly fully grown and was flapping its wings
my only Oslo Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) so far this year
this pair with the male on the left were in Østfold
the Honey Buzzard nest from the last two years with fresh spruce branches added
Arctic Tern (rødnebbterne) with a mayfly in its sights
and about to be caught
Hobby (lerkefalk)
spot the Red-backed Shrike (tornskate). There has still not been any major arrival and I have not located any breeding pairs yes
A Blue Tit (blåmeis) nest jut above ground level
when a Chiffchaff (gransanger) flew up from by my feet I knew there must be a nest nearby and here it was
We have had another long weekend and with good weather forecast
on Saturday I decided to head to the mountains on Friday evening. Normally I
would have had a boyz weekend in the mountains around this time but
circumstances have conspired to mean that wouldn’t happen this year so I rather
spur of the moment packed a sleeping bag in the car and headed off on my own.
In the end I was out for 27 hours and had 2 hours of sleep, 30 minutes of which
was a rather necessary power nap on the way home…
I surprised myself with how much energy I had although on
the way home I was counting down the kilometres.
After 3 and a half hours driving I started the birding at my
Great Snipe lek. After a blank last year I was hoping that was just a bit of
bad luck but there were no birds again this year and I now reckon the lek has
been abandoned. Why is more difficult to answer. It is close to a path and a
ski lift but has always been so and I cannot see any changes in the immediate
area that would affect the birds. The Beitostølen area has seen lots and lots
of building of cabins but the lek is above the cabins, perhaps though the nesting
females have always used areas that are now being developed and the general
area is no longer attractive for them. Alternatively the species itself is
suffering a significant decline due to factors in winter and passage areas and
this has causes some leks to disappear as the birds concentrate in core areas.
These are my maximum counts at the lek since I discovered it in 2012 and the
downward trend is obvious:
the (former) lek site
There were very few birds around the lek otherwise and the
vegetation was still very brown. There was little snow and only lakes above
1300m had ice but I think this is from a warm period 2-3 weeks ago but since
then it has been cold and windy so vegetation has not yet started developing.
I drove a long stretch of road during the night with
frequent stops hoping to find Great Snipe other places but did not succeed.
There was a lot of other life though. Between midnight and 1am I was surprised
by how much activity there was from other waders and grouse and also a Short-eared
Owl that perched in my headlights.
I had my hour and half sleep in the car and awoke at 3:30am to
lots of noise. All manner of birds were singing and displaying and over the
next 6 hours I feasted my eyes on Dotterels, Temminck’s Stints, Shore Larks,
Lapland and Snow Buntings, Bluethroats, Long-tailed Ducks, Scaup, Common and
Velvet Scoters and more. It is clearly not a rodent year in this area and
aswell as no Long-tailed Skuas I just had a single Rough-legged Buzzard,
another Short-eared Owl, 2 Kestrels, a Golden Eagle and a White-tailed Eagle.
After this as the sun warmed things up I concentrated on
butterfliesand I took a slight detour
to visit a site of the rare Large Grizzled Skipped (alvesmyger). I did at the
time think I had found them but my pictures show I saw, or at least the ones I
managed to photograph, were ordinary Grizzled Skippers which I didn’t realise occurred
there. Their large cousins do fly later and the end of June is the time most people
see them so I will have to try again later… I did have another good species but
none were new for me so I am a bit disappointed but will I hope have a
butterfly post soon.
Dotterel (boltit)
it was only displaying females that I saw but they were very active
Golden Eagle (kongeørn) and a mountain
I heard quite a few (although not lots of) Bluethroats (blåstrupe) but saw none at close range
I only had Lapland Buntings (lappspurv) at one site but 5! males were singing and song flighting within 100m of each other
a Ptarmigan (fjellrype) at 11pm
male Shore Lark (fjellerke)
and his mate
one of the two Short-eared Owls (jordugle) I saw
Snow Buntings (snøspurv) were unusually numerous this year
male
female
03:39 at my hotel
my now favoured raptor watch point was a bit disappointing this year with just 4 birds of 4 species: Golden Eagle, White-tailed Eagle, Rough-legged Buzzard and Kestrel
Maridalsvannet is not a classic locality for terns. The
water is very deep and there is little vegetation along the sides or shallow
bays. When water levels are low though and there are hatches of insects then it
can attract a few terns to feed. These are normally Common Terns that are
presumably visiting from their nesting colonies on the fjord although the
length of time that birds visit suggests they are perhaps non breeders as it is
quite the journey back to the fjord if you have a nest there.
Arctic Terns have proven to be more regular than previously
realised or else they have become more regular and are now an expected annual
guest with the timing making it sometimes difficult to know whether they are
late spring migrants or early autumn migrants. Two records of Black Tern and of
course the Gull-billed Tern on 10 June 2023 show that there is always potential
for something rarer and more exciting.
This week has seen a hatch of insects and there have been
lots of Common and Black-headed Gulls hawking insects and with them upto 8!!
Arctic Terns and 4 Common Terns. We have had quite a few rain showers and one of
these at least caused an arrival of Arctics (they increased from 5 to 8). With
records of a Gull-billed and a number of Sandwich Terns to the south and a
White-winged Black to the north I have of course been hoping to find something
rarer myself and have also expected Little Gulls to turn up. They haven’t
unfortunately but it has been fun observing all the different birds and it is
always a challenge identifying Common and Arctic Tern. Anyone who says it is
easy is either really good or lying. One of the Arctic’s has been
present every day and is readily identifiable due to is missing one of its
outer tail feathers and also showing signs of immaturity that have led me to
age it is a 2nd summer / 3rd cy.
the 3cy Arctic Tern (rødnebbtern). All black bill, incomplete black hood and dark feathering on front of wing are all signs of immaturity
here you can also see it is missing (or maybe it hasn't grown out yet) its left outer tail feather
an adult Arctic
adult Arctic
and here an adult Common (makrellterne) and adult Arctic with a Black-headed Gull (hettemåke). In this grainy picture you can still see that the black line on the undersde of the primaries is narrower and more defined on the Arctic which is also a slight smaller bird
adult Common Tern here with the black tip to the bill also visible
all the terns were nearly always in flight but here the 3cy Arctic perched on a rock
same bird
same bird
adult Arctic
Adult Arctic in fron of a ski jump - one of my signature shots ;-)
adult Arctic swooping for food
it is difficult to see what it caught - either a small fish or a large insect
