Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish

I was out birding with Rune today. We briefly flirted with the idea of a ten hour round trip (driving only) to “tick” Norways third Rose-breated Grosbeak (rosenbrysttykknebb) which is feeding at a bird table in deepest Hedmark but instead chose to visit a rubbish dump. The Black Kite (svartglente) has not been seen for a week but neither have many people been looking for it so we thought we would give it a try. On the way we took a detour to Fiskumvannet where we had 3 singing Marsh Warblers (myrsanger), a Little Ringed Plover (dverglo) and a Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) as the highlights. Driving down towards Tønsberg we went through some countryside that looks great for a “nattsanger” tour and even managed Marsh Warbler from the car. The rubbish dump at Taranrød was no pleasant place although there were enough gulls there that some birders would undoubtedly find it an irresistible place. We spoke with an employee there who told us he had seen the Kite yesterday which encouraged us to stay for around an hour although for our troubles we only had a Little Ringed Plover. We then went to Gjennestadvannet where the Kite has also been seen and on the way had another Honey Buzzard and at Gjennestadvannet had a fine pair of Hobbies (lerkefalk) that were regularly in the air hunting dragonflies. We chose to give the rubbish dump another go and did this time have a Buzzard (musvåk). As we were leaving (the wind had picked up and foul dust was being blown about) the employee we had spoken to earlier waved us over to say he had literally just seen the bird fly over. We had seen nothing except a Raven and although it tempted us into staying another half an hour I fear it was a case of mistaken identity.

Hobby