The Magnificent Norwegian Mountains!

WARNING - THIS POST IS LOOOOOONG!

I never got round to properly blogging about last weekend in the mountains before I headed up there again to guide Jack so this post Is a combination of the two.

The long weekend was in good weather – mostly sunny with little wind and I had a fantastic visit to the Great Snipe on the first night. The last two years have taught me that in late May and early June the males are active early on and can even be observed in the sun so I was on site already at 20.30. I heard birds displaying just away from the lek as I walked up and the sun was still shining strongly. It took a while before birds displayed on the lek but they were not visible and initially it was many minutes between every round of “song” but at 21.35 I spied a close bird and the sun was still golden! It wasn’t very active and mostly just stood there but just as it started to display with a bit more frequency (other unseen birds were really warming up) the sun went behind a large cloud and I could see that it would not come out again before the sun disappeared before good behind a rather inconveniently placed mountain. As I was knackered I decided to call it a day and left the lek at 22.15 which is before the action really starts for proper.

A couple of short visits to Valdresflya really paid off and Dotterel, Temminck’s Stint, Shore Lark, Snow Bunting, Bluethroat and best of all 3 Long-tailed Skuas that showed really well. The only raptor or owl I saw was a single Kestrel and it was clearly not a rodent year and the skuas will therefore not breed but they were hanging around with Common Gulls finding food on the ground.

My trip with Jack was some of the most intense birding I have done. I picked Jack up at 20:45 on Wednesday evening and returned to Oslo at 21:00 on Thursday without a second’s sleep and just-non stop birding. We covered 700km (so cannot claim to have been environmentally friendly) and apart from a few stops to eat and keep our energy up it was just bird, bird, bird. We visited my usual sites and scored the same species I had seen just a few days previously with the exception of the skuas (due to the lack of Lemmings them may well have moved off completely) and additional birds we added were many – Golden Eagle, Red-necked Phalarope, Siberian Jay, Long-tailed Duck, Velvet & Common Scoter, Arctic Tern, Lapland Bunting, Merlin, Willow and Black Grouse plus 3 very unexpected species (given where we were) Taiga Bean Goose, Red-backed Shrike and Icterine Warbler. It was a fantastic 24 hours with perfect weather and Jack notched up 9 lifers which we added as 5 before 9am and then 9 before 5pm (sounded cooler at the time 😉 ).

We arrived at the Great Snipe lek at 00:30 and there was intense action. There were 5 males (and possibly a female) and they hardly stopped until 03:00 when a couple of birds flew off the lek and then we just heard infrequent song until we left a bit later. It was light enough for us to see what was going on and the males would jump around, chase each other move around the lek but there was a clear centre which they gravitated towards. Whilst enjoying this we had roding Woodcock, drumming Common Snipe, singing Cuckoo, calling Willow and Black Grouse and singing Robins, Redwings, Song Thrush and Blackbirds that did not stop singing although there was a noticeable increase in the chorus after about 2 am and the first Willow Warbler sang around 02:50.

Waders were around in reasonable numbers but ducks were very scarce. The lakes on Valdresflya were still 95% frozen which explains why there were so few there but the nearby large and lower lakes had very few ducks waiting to go up to their nesting sites. Bluethroats were also very scarce and were present at under half the levels I have found in previous years.

I also took a lot of video but will save that for a new post as I have yet to go through all the files There are a lot of photos though! 😊

Red-necked Phalarope (svømmesnipe). We saw 4 birds together and all looked to be FEmales

Lapland Bunting (lappspurv) - we had quite a few singing males but all in a very small area and no females. This species is becoming rare and localised in southern Norway

Long-tailed Skua (fjelljo)

three birds

Dotterel (boltit) - females were still displaying

same bird photoshopped

Great Snipe (dobbeltbekkasin)

picture taken at 21:39

21:49 after the cloud came

01:59 by torch light

02:33 at 1/50 second

Snow Bunting (snøspurv) - I don't see them every year but they were especially numerous this year although I only saw singing males

Temminck's Stints - perhaps the birds that stopped off at Maridalsvannet in May

Woodcock (rugde) same bird photoshopped

Ringed Plover (sandlo)

Shore Lark (fjellerke)

Bluethroat (blåstrupe)

Ringed Plover and Dunlin (myrsnipe)

Two immature Golden Eagles (kongeørn)

display?

Golden Plover (heilo)

male Kestrel (tårnfalk)

male (Grey-headed) Yellow Wagtail (såerle / gulerle)

and a female

Siberian Jay (lavskrike)

Rarest bird of the trip a Taiga Bean Goose (taigasædgås)

here with a pair of Red-breasted Merganser (siland) showing what a large bird it was

it had some fishing line around its left leg but this didn't seem to be causing it any problems

singing Cuckoos (gjøk) were a constant theme but this bird singing in flight over a lake was a new experience

a male Red-backed Shrike (tornskate) at over 1000m was not expected

this is how the (female) Redpolls (gråsisik) look in this area (this year)

female Merlin (dvergfalk) nesting in a roadside Hooded Crows nest. I have seen them nesting here before