Taiga Beans autumn 2020

I left Maridalen today and went on a Wild Goose Chase. The 3 tagged Taiga Beans have been transmitting from their usual staging area along the River Glomma and this was my first chance to look for them. I found them easily enough on the river but the viewing distance of over 600m with heat haze meant that reading collars was nigh on impossible. I could see six birds were collared (3 metal inscribed collars and the 3 GPS) and did eventually manage to read the number 27 on one of the GPS collars. I counted 99 Taiga Beans plus a single Greylag which is unusual (in the autumn they are normally a pure species flock). There were also 250 Canada Geese nearby on the river and I think all of them had been feeding on the same stubble field.

The Beans looked nervous and I fear they are the victims of illegal hunting although I suspect the hunters would believe they are hunting legal quarry of Greylag or Pink-footed Geese.

He day looked like it would be perfect for raptors but in the end I saw hardly any with just one single Common Buzzard for example.

I stopped at Svellet on the way back and in very challenging light saw around 100 Dunlin and 2 Little Stints but a Hobby was the only raptor in an area that is normally very good in September (see here for last years haul on the same date)

The Taiga Bean Geese are against the far bank

I saw one obvious family group with a pair and a juvenile that was not yet fully grown

Red-backed Shrikes (tornskate) have been very scarce this autumn with no migrants in Maridalen so it was nice to see a couple of birds today

a young Ruff (brushane)

not often I get a chance to take a close up of a Skylark (sanglerke)

two sightings of Hobby (lerkefalk) made it the most numerous raptor