Night singers and butterflies - summer is here!

I still haven’t got round to looking at all my images from the mountains and as I am going up there again this evening for guiding it may be just as well as I may end up taking a whole load of even better shots 😊

Yesterday in Maridalen was a very good day with a total of 72 bird species being noted, see my eBird list here and I also had a good butterfly day. I had planned to see butterflies in the early morning as that was the only time sun was forecast but clearly was a bit too early out as it was only after I had given up and was early back at the car that I noted any but I then had some great variety.

Bird wise I got to grips with the Lapwings with 3 broods of young surviving and all being protected by their parents: 4 & 2 large ones and a new brood of 4 very small ones. In addition the pair is still incubating at Kirkeby and there were 4 adults resting on rocks in the lake. By my calculation then 2 pairs have failed (one after young had hatched and the other unsure) and are not trying again whereas the pair at Kirkeby is a second attempt after failing at Skjerven. So far then this is a fairly good result although the young have still to fledge.

I also got a better understanding of the Little Ringed Plovers with birds present at three sites with pairs seen at two of these including one pair displaying and mating. At the third site I only saw a male but there could well have been a female nearby sitting on eggs. Given that they have been here for 5 weeks I am surprised that they have not come further with their breeding attempts but hopefully they will lay and we will get the first recorded breeding in Maridalen.

I took my first nocturnal trip to the Dale on Monday night as it was perfect conditions – warm and windless. In addition to the Grasshopper Warbler, I heard two Marsh Warblers and there were more Woodcocks than I can remember seeing before. I also heard begging Tawny Owls and a visit to the area yesterday revealed an adult and three quite large young high in a sprue tree. This is a new site and I do not know whether they bred in a nest box or found a natural hole.

This is what I heard on Monday night

and on Tuesday I found mum Tawny Owl (kattugle)

and three young

Little Ringed Plovers (dverglo) displaying with female on ground and male flying over

here the female is inspecting a nest scrape just made by the male (standing) and in the video they are mating

the single male

and the other pair which showed no obvious signs of breeding

4 large Lapwing (vipe) young and a watchful parent

and four very small young

here the right hand youngster takes a fall

male Red-backed Shrike (tornskate) 

female Pied Flycatcher (svarthvit fluesnapper)

and her mate

There seem to be far more Icterine Warblers (gulsanger) than usual in Maridalen

and here is its song

which can be compared to Marsh Warbler (myrsanger)

The Crane (trane) pair have clearly failed once again to breed succesfully

And now some butterflies

grizzled skipper (bakkesmyger)

female Common Blue (tiriltungeblåvinge)

male Common Blue

same male Common Blue

Dingy Skipper (tiriltungesmyger)

male Green-underside Blue (kløverblåvinge)

and from below