Guiding can be stressful when the birds don’t cooperate and
the weather isn’t ideal. I was guiding Nick from England yesterday and Nick had
a long list of desired birds but 4 ticks for someone with a world list over 4000 can't be too bad. We started with Black Woodpecker which proved
easy but frustrating. Two youngsters were making a lot of noise hanging out of
the nest but we had to wait nearly a whole hour for an adult to appear with
food. The reason for this long wait may have been that the adults were trying
to encourage the youngsters to leave the nest because we did actually see one
of the youngsters make it first flight. Given that they are born in a narrow
hole where they have no chance of flexing their wings it is pretty impressive
that they can just launch themselves out of the hole and automatically manage
to fly.
Hazel Grouse were not so accommodating but Common Rosefinch
(at least 6 birds), Icterine Warbler and Long-tailed Tit all showed. At
Østensjøvannet the Corncrake showed briefly in flight and then after a long
wait sang just a few metres from us without showing itself and must nearly have
walked between our feet without us seeing it.
Searching for owls and other nocturnal singers was hampered
by strong winds and cool temperatures and we only had Woodcock and Water Rail
for our troubles plus 5 Moose including a mother with two very small calves.
The camera was not used in anger yesterday but here are a
couple of videos from Friday.
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