Hooting and screeching in the Dale

Finally, there is some nocturnal owl activity in Maridalen (or at least I have heard it for the first time) and with it a new species for me in the Dale!

Firstly, on Thursday evening two Tawny Owls sang whilst we were on our evening dog walk. This was our fifth trip in the area so to suddenly hear two singing was a surprise and a good one at that! One sang very close to us and I managed to find it with my headtorch. I also filmed it with my mobile but the one very good sequence that I thought I had filmed proved not to have been filmed although I did manage to film the next two minutes with the phone in my pocket…. Me not managing to press the record button when I want to record and then pressing it when I think I am stopping the filming is a recurring problem on both my camera and my phone. It is happening even more at the moment though when I have to remove my gloves and lose all feeling in my fingertips due to the cold. I think that both owls were males and they were singing at least 500m apart without me hearing anything that sounded like a female joining in the act. These may therefore be two males born last year (which seemed to be a good year for the species in the Dale) who are now trying to establish territories and find a mate.

Tawny Owl is of course a species that have seen many times in Maridalen. My nemesis owl though is Tengmalm’s (perleugle) which I have tried for countless times and put in a particular effort for last autumn. I have heard it just outside the boundaries of Maridalen but have always wanted to record it in the Dale. Yesterday, I had a bird call in an area I have long thought suitable for the species and where there are old Black Woodpecker holes so even though I heard no song last night I am quietly confident that there will be more action as it warms up and spring progesses.

Tengmalm’s becomes my 197^th species in Maridalen. Ca.218 species have been recorded in the Dale (I know there are some species missing from the list of 215 species shown in Artsobservasjoner - now dead birders have told me of Ural Owl, Black Tern, Dotterel and Caspian Tern plus some sensitive species such as Golden Eagle are not shown. On the flip side there a couple of species recorded that I am very sceptical about). I should therefore be able to reach the magical 200 species in the next couple of years and the plan is that species 200 will be Norway’s first record of Black-shouldered Kite 😊