Arriving in the mountains

searching for forest birds

Today we made our way from Drammen up to Geilo along the scenic Rv.40 with stops at suitable looking places along the way. Best birds were Crane (trane), Black-throated Diver (storlom), 4 Merlin (dvergfalk) including a pair breeding in an old crow’s nest, Bluethroat (blåstrupe), Arctic Tern (rødnebbterne), Crested Tit (toppmeis), Wryneck (vendehals), Green Woodpecker (grønnspett) and Mistle Thrush (duetrost).

Unfortunately hoped for birds such as Siberian Jay (lavskrike), Three-toed Woodpecker (tretåspett) and Red-necked Phalarope (svømmensipe) did not show today.

Today’s comedy moment was when the 50 seater bus proved, as long feared, to be unsuitable for this trip when the chosen road became first a gravel track and then too narrow and then too steep. As we drove past a farmhouse we realised that they were not waving at us but signalising STOP which we very soon had to. A guy then came out taking pictures of us to post on Facebook – they have had crazy tourists driving up here before but never a coach! With his help our accomplished driver was able to turn the bus but we had to admit that we could not get to Budalen. As luck would have it though our Facebook friend was the driver of a minibus and he drove us (for a very moderate price) up to the lake and proved to be a very entertaining tour guide!

female Grey-headed (Yellow Wagtail race thunbergi) in Burdalen

recently fledged Willow Tit