Taking stock at home

Maridalsvannet on the morning of 20th May

In Oslo it seems as though migration has come to end with rain and southerly winds causing absolutely nothing exciting to turn up. Svellet also still has mud but without there being a single wader reported this morning. Even though the period of quantity of passage birds has passed we are definitely entering the highest quality time and yesterday a stonking male Black-headed Bunting was pulled out of a mist nest in the garden of a twitcher who I had no idea had a ringers licence.

Almost all breeding migrants have now turned up with the first Rosefinches, Red-backed Shrikes, Marsh Warblers and Nightjars being reported now even if I have yet to see any of them yet.

My focus has now turned to locating breeding birds both for my own benefit and also a busy period of guiding that I have coming up. Hazel Grouse has been a real nightmare this spring. A long walk on 17 May with Mrs OB and The Beast took me past 8 or 9 territories where I have previously had the species but with not a single bird being found. Today I checked 3 territories in another area including “my pair” and did finally pull a bird out of the hat which I feel confident of being able to find again. Three-toed Woodpecker has also been a headache this year so a female that gave herself away tapping on a tree was a relief but she flew off without me being able to track her to a nest.

The two pairs of Black Woodpeckers continue to entertain with the one pair still applying the finishing interior design touches to their property and the other pair working hard to fill three noisy mouths with food. In this video you can see the male using over a minute and a half to feed them individually with food he is clearly regurgitating into his bill.

the male Black Woodpecker (svartspett) that is still putting the finishing touches to his property

and two of the three young in the other nest which is at a far more expected stage

Hobby (lerkefalk) today. I have only seen a single bird and heard no calling so do not believe a pair has returned yet

Black-throated Divers (storlom)

I watched a Wood Warbler (bøksanger) with nesting material in its beak fly onto the ground here. Can you spot the nest?

here it is and is of a similar construction to Willow Warbler (løvsanger) and Chiffchaff (gransanger) nests I have previously found

On the Lapwing front there are still two birds incubating and seemingly three broods of 4,1 and 1. With the two broods of single young the siblings were lost very early on but the remaining young are now half grown and will hopefully make it. The brood of 4 is a few days younger but the parents have done very well to still have all four alive.

Post guiding silver platter

As is typical after guiding, the species that were difficult to find have served themselves up on a silver plater in the following days….😂

 A male Three-toed Woodpecker has showed exceptionally well in Maridalen in a small area of flooded forest with dead trees well away from the species normal areas and the exact area we checked unsuccesfully on Saturday for Black Woodpecker (and had no other ‘peckers either). And Black ‘pecker which was our most striking miss at the weekend has of course also shown well….

 Pygmy Owls have just been waiting for me on roadside trees and two in a day was so noteworthy that it required a comment on eBird (our local reviewer is a meticulous young man😉).

 A visit to the Hazel Grouse saw me heading straight for where we had the male on Saturday and what do you know - he was in exactly the same tree and I only used 10 minutes from leaving the car to see him rather than nearly 2 hours. He was high up in an alder tree but I was able to clamber up a slope and see him nearly at eye level for a long period of time.

 Two different Marsh Tits still in Maridalen maintain the hope of the species establishing itself although they are not a pair and one of them is the (mostly) silent bird which always is hanging with Willow Tits and which best case has an identity crisis and worst case may be a hybrid. The other bird loves to call and is either on its own (although earlier there were two vocal birds together) or with Blue Tits.

 Jack and I visited Owl Road last night in glorious positions - a cloudless starry night sky, -16C, no wind and even a tiny slither of a moon. Three Tengmalm’s Owls meant a 200% increase on 9 days earlier but we had no other owls (it was the same date last year when I showed Jack his very firstGGO).

 The sun has been shining but temperatures remain a long way south of zero so early spring migrants are still to arrive but from the middle of next week we are forecast to have temperatures above zero and some rain. This will probably be all that is needed for the first geese, Snow Buntings, Skylarks or Starlings to show up if there are suddenly snow free flecks on the fields.

only three toes

the rings on this tree suggest that a Three-toed has been in this area quite a while...

Moose have also showed well but were absent at the weekend

Pygmy Owl in the snow

I attempted some flight shots and nearly succeeded in a sharp shot

my Hazel Grouse (jerpe) photos were nothing special but I am happy with the videos which have him singing and eating snow

singing

owling on Owl Road

and Pygmy Owling in Maridalen with the bird on top of the highest spruce

I then had a very nice photo shoot with him or perhaps her

and a Robin (rødstrupe) in the snow

and these little beauties are still giving of themselves

Taiga guiding

This weekends guiding had me praying to the Bird Gods and wondering what I had done to displease them before eventually being giving their slightly limited blessing.

Martyn, Jo and Stella had come to Oslo to see our special winter birds and especially Hawk Owl and I was determined they would leave happy.

On Saturday the target was the specialities of Maridalen and surrounding forests and on Sunday it was the taiga areas of Hedmark. 

Saturday was sunny, windless and cold with temperatures down to -20C in the forest and on Sunday it was forecast to be same but ended up being cloudy with occasional snow and temperatures down to -23C. We experienced near white out conditions a couple of times when we were in low cloud and whilst cool to experience it was not the best conditions for finding birds.

On Saturday the targets were Hazel Grouse, Pygmy Owl and interesting woodpeckers. Hazel Grouse took an hour and a half and just as we were about to head back to the car empty handed I had one last attempt and finally a bird sang. It then took another 15 minutes to find the bird but it then sat directly above us in a tree and was so unaffected by our presence that it never even looked down at us.

Otherwise, the forest was very quiet with no peckers of any type.

Maridalen gave us Crested and Willow Tits, Goshawk, Dipper and Hawfinch and eventually Pygmy Owl which showed very well but far too briefly.

So, the two main targets were delivered but peckers disappointed.

 

Sunday we had a two hour drive to the taiga and I kept hoping the forecast sun would appear the further north we drove but instead we just saw lower and lower cloud. The forests were covered in thick snow but where were the birds?!? We slowly drove the forest roads for over 4 hours and saw only 11 species and only around 40 individual birds of which Bullfinches made up half of these…. 

For a long time a female Capercaille was the top bird before a Three-toed ‘pecker gave itself up but far too briefly and partly made up for the lack of peckers the day before but we still failed to see a Black. But where were the taiga species? Hawk Owl (which was the #1 priority for the whole weekend, Pine Grosbeak and Sibe Jay?

People were dozing off in the car but I was still searching for a lump on a tree top and FINALLY a Hawk Owl gave itself up. Only 30 metres from the road it showed just long enough for me to set up the scope so its yellow eyes could be studied before stooping down and never reappearing. That was the last bird we saw in the forest and a fitting end to the trip but I would have liked to be able to find Grosbeak and Sibe Jay. It wasn’t through lack of trying and if the sun had been shining then I think we would have had more birds perching on tree tops but we play with the cards we are dealt with.

 

Pictures were not my priority but here is a flavour of the weekend.

watching Hawkie

can you spot him?

a bit more recognisable here

the football in a tree is "my" Hazel Grouse

very close but he never lifted his head and looked at us!

female Capercaille (storfugl)

Pygmy Owl (spurveugle)

and a Three-toed 'pecker leaving stage right

Hazel Grouse is back on the menu!

In my last post on Hazel Grouse I wrote about how “my” reliable and easily accessible pair had vanished with my last sighting in the early spring of 2024. I have only visited the area a few times since then but have drawn a blank each time but have always had high hopes that I would find birds again as I consider the habitat to be absolutely perfect for the species. Getting a bit tired of searching for Jack Snipe and Pygmy Owl yesterdy I wanted a change of scenery and a walk in the forest and decided to head for the Hazel Grouse area. The forest is dead silent this winter with NO finches of any description and even tits are hard to come by. It therefore brought a huge smile to my face when I heard the thin whistle of a male HG. And it was in exactly the same trees where I have had many close encounters with “my” pair. With it being close to two years since my last sighting here I naturally assumed that this was a new pair that had taken over this prime piece of real estate but they were a very confiding pair allowing me to stand under them and noisily crunch around in the snow (this was behaviour that the previous pair displayed but which I do not otherwise associate with the generally shy species). I then checked my photos and the male lacks an obvious red eyebrow exactly as the previous male did and the female has a particularly dark throat as the previous female did. So, are they same birds that have just evaded me for all this time? Is one of them the same and has brought a new mate back to the territory or are they both new birds? I guess we can never know for sure but if they hang around through the spring then their behaviour and especially how close they allow me to approach will give some strong indications.

Today, Thursday, I paid another visit and found the male feeding on the ground. He allowed such close approach that I am feeling quite confident that it is my boy.

Most importantly it looks like I may be able to add Hazel Grouse back onto my list of highly likely species for guiding 😊

male Hazel Grouse (jerpe)

and the female. Her dark throat can be seen better in the video below