The last two days I have been guiding Judith and Alan from
Cambridgeshire and have two of the best birding and guiding days I can
remember. Great birds, great people, hard work and reward from the bird gods!
Yesterday we started the day looking for Hazel Grouse. It
wasn’t until the 5th territory (which is always the surest one but
also the longest to walk to) that we found the bird but then we had a great
series of fleeting glimpses of flying and running birds in a wet and thick
forest which made everything worthwhile. We also had a flyover Black Grouse and
later heard one bubbling away.
After this Maridalen delivered the goods: Black Woodpecker,
Tawny Owl (parent and young), Goshawk, Black and Red-throated Divers and a
Great Snipe that for once showed in the open. Plus of course lots of commoner
birds. In the evening I also found time for a quick trip up between delivering
and collecting children and found a 2nd summer Little Gull.
Today I had Nordre Øyeren as the destination. It was
overcast and drizzling (same as yesterday) and with a southerly wind which is
pretty darn good conditions in May.
We started at Svellet where there is still a nice sized area
of mud. The makeup of the waders has changed dramatically. Gone are large numbers
of Greenshank and there were far fewer Wood Sands but Dunlin, Ruff, Redshank
and Ringed Plover were now numerous. I have always hoped for good wader
conditions in the second half of May as I believe the potential for exciting
species is high and one of these is Broad-billed Sandpiper which sure enough I
found!! Zak managed to twitch it before we moved on to Årnestangen ;-)
The walk out was disappointingly quiet but as we got to the
tip we had a hunting Short-eared Owl, then Garganey, more Dunlin, Bluethroat
and Scaup. There were lots of birds around and it was all capped off by flyover
Dotterel which I first heard calling for a while as it must have been flying in
circles before I picked it up and it then decided to fly off to the west rather
than landing.
Walking back to the car we had a close female Lesser Spotted
Woodpecker then checked out Snekkervika. Hobby, Sedge Warbler, Redstart, Gadwall,
Pintail. Pied and Spotted Flycatchers were all good birds but the undoubted
highlight was a large group of lekking Ruff that gave great scope views. The
prime goal of Judith and Alan’s trip to Norway is to see lekking Ruff which
they will do in Finnmark later this week so this was a huge bonus to see them
here. It was also fantastic for me – I have seen Ruff lekking a few times
before but never like this whilst they are on passage close to Oslo.
You would have thought that the day couldn’t be bettered –
well you thought wrong. A last stop at Svellet to see if there was any change
in the waders (birds had been flying over when we were at Årnestangen) revealed
similar numbers although Dunlin had risen to 61 which is by far and away my
highest spring count. I kept scanning and scanning without finding anything new
and exciting and then had a final scan where I scanned over the water (rather
than mud) and boom! Finally, a bird that I have been waiting to see in Norway –
a Caspian Tern! It was resting with its head and bill hidden but there was no
doubting it identity but when it got the carrot out I went all mushy J
My digital recordings of the last two days action are
limited as my own pictures are not the priority when guiding but I was able to
record for prosperity some of the highlights.
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| Black Woodpecker (svartspett) |
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| Great Snipe (dobbeltbekkasin) |
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| 2nd summer Little Gull (dvergmåke) |
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| Tawny Owl (kattugle) |
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| nestling Tawny Owls |
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| Bluethroat (blåstrupe) |
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| Caspian Tern (rovterne) |
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| Garganey (knekkand) |
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| Lesser Spotted Woodpecker |
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| waders at Svellet. Somewhere amongst them is a Broad-brilled Sandpiper |
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