Hazel Grouse ultimate views whilst guiding!

The Bird Gods took a while to show their pleasure with me yesterday but then left me feeling very blessed. Male Hazel Grouse (jerpe)

We are now getting towards the most exciting and busy time of the (Oslo Birding) year and with lots of digital and mental impressions to process from the last couple of days birding and guiding then blogging suddenly becomes a use of time that is difficult to prioritise (hence I am writing this on Saturday morning whilst the family sleeps and I have sacrificed an early morning trip to the Dale…..in mid-April....).

I was booked for guiding on Friday and with a list of desired species I decided to use Thursday to search out some of these forest dwelling species. I visited the areas that have been most productive both earlier this year and in previous years and was very surprised by how little I was able to find. I only found one single woodpecker of any species (a Great Spotted) and heard none drumming (this is very worrying and makes me wonder if something is wrong). Owls were not of the hoped for small species but in my unsuccessful search for Pygmy Owl I set off a Tawny Owl that sang in the middle of the day. I eventually tracked it down and it was so active in an area where I can’t imagine there are nest holes that I believe it to be an unmated male who has just found an area with lots of food (and there were many rodent tracks in the grass).

The only desired species that showed easily was Hazel Grouse and these were in my best spot for the species. On Friday when guiding I therefore headed straight to this area. Well, long story short it took two and a half hours to find them (and during this time we saw precious little else) but when we did find them we were then treated to half an hour of unprecedented views of the species. Norwegian Hazel Grouse pictures have been unusually prominent on Facebook over the last year after a photography guide has managed to habitualise a bird to his presence and been able to offer customers fantastic views (and photo opportunities). Maybe I should try this but it is I believe a process that takes many months and of course there are many other factors that are out of your own control. I think I will therefore be content with having a number of sites where I know the species occurs and just having to try all of them until we connect…

The views and photographs we got yesterday could not have been better and though it is always possible to be critical of the photos I think I am unlikely to get better EVER 😊 We had a pair although as usual the female showed very fleetingly and it was the male who made his presence known. On two occasion he sat and sang in the open in sunshine and I managed to get the camera settings more or less correct!

In Maridalen both Goshawk territories are occupied and there are fresh green branches on this year's chosen nests (each pair has a couple of alternative nests) – it has been a while since both pairs bred successfully so I am interested to see how things progress this year. I also checked out a Tawny Owl nest after having heard that in some places the young have already left the nest (an abundance of rodents can lead to very early nesting in owls). The response I got suggested that the female was still on eggs so I have action to look forward to here later in the spring.

It would have been great to have filmed him singing at this range. Maybe a project for next week..

 

the female Hazel Grouse - a far trickier subject to capture

I took these pictures on my recce on Thursday and at the time was pretty happy with them 😊 The distance between the pairs I saw on Thursday and Friday was about 400m and it is possible they were the same birds but I believe were different.

here the bird is singing whilst looking away from me and you really see how puffed up he is

And here are some other things I have seen the last couple of days.

not often one finds a dayime Tawny Owl away from a known nest

here he was singing (note the puffed out throat) which I should have tried to film

he was getting grief from a couple of Nutcrackers (nøttekråke)

when he had had enough of the scolding he flew straight over my head

This video has the sound of him singing plus all the birds scolding him including Blackbird, Nutcracker and Chaffinch

 

Yellowhammer (gulspurv) is the Bird of The Year in Norway so it is good to put the focus on one ;-)

The fields are very dry in Maridalen and the Lapwings (vipe) have not started nesting yet

arty photo

Will Whitey stay the summer?

if you choose to wear white then don't be surprised if you get mucky after playing in the mud

I was very concerned when I saw this cyclist riding over the middle of the still frozen Maridalsvannet. It appeared that the ice was still thick enough but to do this in the middle of April is madness