The Mountains 2023 - Valdresflye and Vinstre

Up at 5am we headed for Valdresflye hoping to experience displaying waders and with luck Long-tailed Skuas. I always hope for snow here as this means the birds are concentrated on the few areas of bare ground but this year there was far too much snow and few birds were back with the side of the road attracting most of them so at least views were good. We had Dunlin, Ringed Plovers and Temminck’s Stints in display flights but no Golden Plover and most disappointingly no Dotterel. There was not a sign of Lemmings so a lack of Long-tailed Skuas and no raptors of any kind was not a surprise but yet again a disappointment. Given the amount of snow there were a surprising number of insect eating passerines with many Wheatears, Meadow Pipits and a few White Wagtails. Shore Larks were also back and some were singing.

The snow line was at around 1000m and the large lake of Vinstre was frozen except for a small area at the western end. A lot of duck were concentrated here with around 50 Tufted Duck and most impressively 23 Long-tailed Duck. This is, as far as I can see, a record count in this area. 12 birds were in a flock and were passionately displaying whilst the other birds were mostly already paired but these also were calling at times. 7 Velvet and 2 Common Scoter are always good to see on their mountain breeding grounds but no Scaup was a worrying sign. We also didn’t find any Lapland Buntings and both of these species are in serious decline in southern Norway.

I had hoped for a lot of waders on the sandbanks in the lake but there were just a few  of the same species we had seen earlier on Valdresflye. A pair of Arctic Terns seemed a bit lost, a Short-eared Owl was hunting but without success and a Rough-legged Buzzard just flew quickly over.

male Long-tailed Duck (havelle) in summer plumage which I think is far drabber than their winter plumage

with Tufted Ducks (toppand)

Shore Larks (fjellerke) on the road

and in the snow

male Snow Bunting (snøspurv), a montage of the same bird

Temminck's Stint

the only Rough-legged Buzzard (fjellvåk) of the trip

and the only Short-eared Owl (jordugle)

male Teal (krikkand)

male Wheatear (steinskvett)

Wood Sandpiper (grønnstilk)

with a Meadow Pipit (heipiplerke)

and with a Yellow Wagtail (gulerle)

ducks on Vinstre

Vinstre lake with open water (and birds) at the western end

lots of snow on Valdresflye

at lake level looking towards Bitihorn

Vinstre again on 4.6.23. I have posted many pictures from this point over the years