Staking out Maridalen

It helps a lot for my guiding to have a few special species that, with a high level of confidence, I can show people close to Oslo and ideally in Maridalen. Last year at the top of the list were Red-breasted Flycatcher and Three-toed Woodpecker. This year the Red-breasted Flys have not returned (seems to be a very poor year for the species in Norway) but I have located the Three-toed Peckers and yesterday I found the nest after a lot of searching. So that species is now easy (as are Black Woodpeckers for a short period until the young leave the nest). Hazel Grouse is also reliable with enough time (and without having to walk for hours) and today I finally managed those good pictures that have normally eluded me with this species.

Elsewhere in Maridalen I located a pair of Common Rosefinches plus Icterine and Wood Warblers. Spotted Flycatchers seem to be very common this year, Pied Flycatchers are in average numbers and Garden Warblers are also numerous. The only species yet to arrive are the “night singers” although that requires me going out at night to find them and the scarcer species Honey Buzzard and Red-backed Shrike which often prove difficult to find until August when suddenly they are easy to find.

The Whooper Swan pair have given up their nesting attempt for unknown reasons and are just feeding in an area a couple of hundred metres from the nest. The other pair has also left the valley and maybe it was all the rivalry that caused both pairs to fail to establish themselves properly?

Hazel Grouse (jerpe). It was gloomy in the forest and I had to hand hold the bazooka at 1/250 sec to get an ISO of 4000 but I think the result is very acceptable - you can even see the colour of the iris

this male has very little visible red skin around the eye - a small amount is visible here but otherwise it does not show in my pictures. Maybe a 2cy bird?

I managed to take this handheld and used the antishake feature in the video editing software to make it a bit less shaky although some quality has been lost:

male Three-toed Woodpecker (tretåspett)

and the female

and here at the nest

male Common Rosefinch (rosenfink) 

and a female Rosefinch - would be easy to string this as a House Sparrow (gråspurv) if I wanted a Maridalen tick...

Wood Warbler (bøksanger)

Icterine Warbler (gulsanger)

and a Black-throated Diver (storlom) during a surprise thunder storm

not often I take pictures of Redwing (rødvingetrost)

and a very short video of the singing Greenish Warbler

Celebrations and Guiding

The last few days have been very busy. On Saturday we celebrated Oslo Birder Jr’s “confirmation”, a traditional non-religious coming of age celebration I Norway and on Sunday afternoon after having finished cleaning up after the previous days festivities I guided Martin from Norwich who was on his way to Svalbard and today I guided Ramona and Cilli from Germany who are enjoying a Norwegian holiday.

Yesterday, the goals were Hazel Grouse and Slavonian Grebe and we succeeded big time. Today’s guiding was equally successful and we succeeded with Greenish Warbler, Slavonian Grebe and Three-toed Woodpecker which had alluded me yesterday. On top of this there were of course lots of commoner species including Crane, Black Woodpecker, flycatchers and various warblers. I don’t have the energy to write any more (a cold and pollen allergy are laying me very low) but will let the pictures do the talking.

I stuggled yet again with getting a good photo of the Hazel Grouse (jerpe) although Martin got some better pics

this could have been good if I focused on the bird instead of the tree

Slavonian Grebe (horndykker)

the Greenish Warbler (østsanger) was singly strongly but would not come close. This is the only bird recoreded in Norway so far this spring as far as I know and was a great find by Ole Vignes

Three-toed Woodpecker showed briefly today

Oppland Guiding- Great Snipe & Dotterel

On Friday and Saturday I was on another marathon guiding session taking in the Oslo area and Oppland. Lekking Great Snipe and Dotterel were the main targets for the delightful Trent and Meta from Austin, Texas but we found a lot of other good birds on the way. Sleep was again a precious commodity with the Great Snipes being a nocturnal bird and us then finding out that the road over the mountain would be closed at 1030 due to a marathon so we had to have had an early start to ensure we could get the Dotterel and then get out of the area again!

So what did we see? Of course we succeeded with the two main targets although rain and fog did their best to make it difficult. We also had Greenish Warbler, Thrush Nightingale, Goshawk, Rough-legged Buzzard, Tawny Owl, Icterine Warbler, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Wryneck, Woodcock, Willow Grouse, Common Rosefinch, nesting Cranes and Whooper Swans just metres from each other, Lesser Redpoll, Shore Lark and Long-tailed Skua! Pretty good, I would say :-)

. We had 4 Dotterel including a bird very close, a distant Long-tailed Skua, singing Shore Larks.

As usual when guiding my camera rarely came out but I did put get a few shots and some video:

Dotterel (boltit). We had 4 Dotterel including this very close bird. There was also a distant Long-tailed Skua, singing Shore Larks, Dunlin, Ringed Plover and Golden Plover plus good numbers of Wheatear on the mountain plateau

Great Snipe (dobbeltbekkasin). The Great Snipe lek was only just getting going when we left at 11pm after the rain and fog got the better of us but three males were displaying and fighting and there  were at least a couple more silent birds on the lek

Greenish Warbler (østsanger). We had tried unsuccesfully for this bird at the beginning of the trip on Friday but in the end bagged it as the least bird on Saturday

Valdresflya with relatively little snow this year

looking east over Vinstre lake taken at 0746

and again at 0909 - stunning scenery

Whooper Swans (sangsvane) and Cranes surprisingly nesting side by side. A chick had just hatched in the Crane nest and the adult were pecking at the other egg as though trying to help things on their way

When Mrs OB wanted to go for a walk the chance to enjoy the forests north of Maridalen and perhaps reencounter the Greenish Warbler seemed to be a win win situation. The bird was singing in exactly the same spot as I found it yesterday and could be heard singing from a good distance as one approached (reports of the bird from other spots seem surprising (unless the two bird theory applies) and I well remember being fooled previously by the song of some Coal Tits and Treecreeper which can have a very musical song sometimes).

I again struggled to get good pictures with a constantly moving bird and surprisingly poor light (when looking through the camera) but the results and especially video were a marked improvement over yesterday’s efforts.

Last night I had my first nocturnal trip of the year and went up into Maridalen. At my first stop at 11pm (and whilst still quite light) I had a flock of 400 geese going over which from their call and date and the fact that a major passage occured that day had to be hrota Brent Geese. These birds which are migrating from Denmark(?) to their breeding grounds on Svalbard always migrate in late May/early June but usually go up the west coast of Norway. In recent years however more an more birds have been going up the Oslo Fjord although many seem to get confused as to their next step once the sea runs out as were these birds who were heading NE. Apart from Tawny Owls at three sites the only nocturnal birds I had were my first Marsh Warbler and Woodcock of the year.

Greenish Warbler (østsanger)

Guiding Gold again – Greenish Warbler!

Guiding is proving to be good at turning up rare birds for me. This morning I was showing Pete from England the highlights of Maridalen. Hazel Grouse was top of the wish list so we headed straight for the site where I had them whilst guiding recently (without trying all the other seemingly empty territories). It is a good hike up to the site so when we didn’t find them to begin with I began to worry but there was nothing to worry about as after few minutes as a male flew in (on unusually silent wings) and perched nearly above Pete’s head. My view was obscured but when I did get a chance for a photo the camera wouldn’t focus which was to prove to be a problem later in the day.

Later in the day was when we were walking back to the car and a loud song close to us had us scratching our heads. My first suggestion was a Tree Pipit not quite in the swing of things but just before I glimpsed the bird I remembered the song – GREENISH WARBLER!! What had I predicted only a few days ago??

It showed really well but taking photos proved a real challenge with the camera either not focusing or when it did focus then it wouldn’t take a shot. In the end though there were a couple of record shots and I recorded the song.

Greenish Warbler is a national rarity and this was the first record in the country this year.

We didn’t spend a long time with the bird as we had more ground to cover but the bird was well watched by others later and it is possible there is more than one singing male in the area.

The rest of Maridalen did of course also deliver and we had Goshawk including close views of an adult male, ridiculously good views of a male Black Woodpecker, Common Rosefinch plus the usual selection of flycatchers and warblers.

singing Greenish Warbler (østsanger) 

male Black Woodpecker (svartspett)

male Common Rosefinch (rosenfink)