It’s all a bit wet and windy at the moment and the dry spells
when they come need to be used well for as long as they last. Spells that
started dry but turned wet allowed me to hear a rare Oslo Quail found by the
nearly young but already come Jack D at Hengsenga and to get second goes at the
Rb Fly.
slightly better shot of the Rb Fly with the bazooka being deployed on a rare occasion
A Maridalen nocturnal trip last night was far too windy and
birds were very few and far between. Much more cooperative were two separate
Moose which are not a usual sight in the summer months. One showed extremely
well by the road with the Grasshopper Warbler serenading it.
We have had another long weekend and with good weather forecast
on Saturday I decided to head to the mountains on Friday evening. Normally I
would have had a boyz weekend in the mountains around this time but
circumstances have conspired to mean that wouldn’t happen this year so I rather
spur of the moment packed a sleeping bag in the car and headed off on my own.
In the end I was out for 27 hours and had 2 hours of sleep, 30 minutes of which
was a rather necessary power nap on the way home…
I surprised myself with how much energy I had although on
the way home I was counting down the kilometres.
After 3 and a half hours driving I started the birding at my
Great Snipe lek. After a blank last year I was hoping that was just a bit of
bad luck but there were no birds again this year and I now reckon the lek has
been abandoned. Why is more difficult to answer. It is close to a path and a
ski lift but has always been so and I cannot see any changes in the immediate
area that would affect the birds. The Beitostølen area has seen lots and lots
of building of cabins but the lek is above the cabins, perhaps though the nesting
females have always used areas that are now being developed and the general
area is no longer attractive for them. Alternatively the species itself is
suffering a significant decline due to factors in winter and passage areas and
this has causes some leks to disappear as the birds concentrate in core areas.
These are my maximum counts at the lek since I discovered it in 2012 and the
downward trend is obvious:
the (former) lek site
There were very few birds around the lek otherwise and the
vegetation was still very brown. There was little snow and only lakes above
1300m had ice but I think this is from a warm period 2-3 weeks ago but since
then it has been cold and windy so vegetation has not yet started developing.
I drove a long stretch of road during the night with
frequent stops hoping to find Great Snipe other places but did not succeed.
There was a lot of other life though. Between midnight and 1am I was surprised
by how much activity there was from other waders and grouse and also a Short-eared
Owl that perched in my headlights.
I had my hour and half sleep in the car and awoke at 3:30am to
lots of noise. All manner of birds were singing and displaying and over the
next 6 hours I feasted my eyes on Dotterels, Temminck’s Stints, Shore Larks,
Lapland and Snow Buntings, Bluethroats, Long-tailed Ducks, Scaup, Common and
Velvet Scoters and more. It is clearly not a rodent year in this area and
aswell as no Long-tailed Skuas I just had a single Rough-legged Buzzard,
another Short-eared Owl, 2 Kestrels, a Golden Eagle and a White-tailed Eagle.
After this as the sun warmed things up I concentrated on
butterfliesand I took a slight detour
to visit a site of the rare Large Grizzled Skipped (alvesmyger). I did at the
time think I had found them but my pictures show I saw, or at least the ones I
managed to photograph, were ordinary Grizzled Skippers which I didn’t realise occurred
there. Their large cousins do fly later and the end of June is the time most people
see them so I will have to try again later… I did have another good species but
none were new for me so I am a bit disappointed but will I hope have a
butterfly post soon.
Dotterel (boltit)
it was only displaying females that I saw but they were very active
Golden Eagle (kongeørn) and a mountain
I heard quite a few (although not lots of) Bluethroats (blåstrupe) but saw none at close range
I only had Lapland Buntings (lappspurv) at one site but 5! males were singing and song flighting within 100m of each other
a Ptarmigan (fjellrype) at 11pm
male Shore Lark (fjellerke)
and his mate
one of the two Short-eared Owls (jordugle) I saw
Snow Buntings (snøspurv) were unusually numerous this year
male
female
03:39 at my hotel
my now favoured raptor watch point was a bit disappointing this year with just 4 birds of 4 species: Golden Eagle, White-tailed Eagle, Rough-legged Buzzard and Kestrel
Since posting last time I have been keeping tabs on
my late breeders and the young have now left the nest but have not wandered far
and will still be reliant on their parents for another 3 weeks or so.
I have been spending quite a time gazing skywards in
Maridalen and have noted a number of Sparrowhawks and regular Ospreys with a
couple of sightings each of Kestrel and Hobby but I have only seen 1 Common
Buzzard and no Honey Buzzards confirming my suspicion that these species have
had a bad year locally.
The odd migrant wader has dropped in with
Greenshank, Redshank and Wood Sandpiper noted and of the breeding species the
odd Common and Green Sandpiper is still around and a group of 3 young Little
Ringed Plovers looked a bit lost after their parent have left them (I wonder
how many broods these 3 are from).
A singing Quail was a real surprise but as usual I
did not get to see although it was very close as can be heard on this mobile
phone video.
A twitching trip to Svellet yesterday when I turned
50 (entering the autumn of my life?) gave me Caspian Tern (which I saw in
flight and fishing) and Black-tailed Godwit.
There are extremely few butterflies around but I
have managed to see Silver-washed Fritillary and got good views of one of my
local Purple Hairstreaks.
Caspian Tern (rovterne) - my third bird in Norway and all of them have been at Svellet. This is the first one though that I have seen in flight
it caught a fish which it seemed to swallow in flight
a montage of 4 shots of it landing
female Purple Hairstreak (eikestjertvinge)
my first Silver-washed Fritillary (keiserkåpe) of the year. I would normally have seen many by now
female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (dvergspett) in Maridalen
I have been guiding the last two days. Firstly,
Donna and Doug from Californian and today Steve and Ann from Blighty.
Wehave visited Fornebu, Østensjøvannet and Maridalen
and we have seen a lot of birds with many species feeding young either in the
nest or newly fledged. At Fornebu I discovered a pair of Thrush Nightingales bringing
food to a nest. They were very close to a path and it was their alarm calling
that alerted me to them. I did not recognise the call and the closest I could
come was young owls but after a bit of searching found one and then both Thrush
Nightingales with food in their beaks. The views were great but it was a bit gloomy
so pictures do not do justice. We also had Ringed Plovers, Wheatears,
Whitethroats, Skylarks and Willow Warblers all with fledged young and Marsh Warblers
singing. 4 Lapwings were early autumn migrants although hopefully not failed
breeders.
At Østensjøvannet we had a great show from Great
Crested Grebes with two adults swimming under the bridge we were standing on
and being visible under water.
In Maridalen Goshawk, flycatchers, Black-throated
Diver, Iccy, Rosefinch and Red-backed Shrike all showed well.
In total over the two days we had around 80 species.
Thrush Nightingale (nattergal) with food for young
in many species the yellow at the base of the bill would be a sign of a juvenile bird but not in this species
telling Thrush and Common Nightingales apart is not easy on either song or plumage but a good photo shows that P1 is very short thus confirming Thrush...
Thrush Nightingale video - most interesting for the calls
great feet on a Great Crested Grebe (toppdykker)
swims like a frog
Great Crested Grebe swimming under water (video from a series of stills)
juvenile Magpie (skjære)
juvenile Ringed Plover (sandlo)
adult Skylark (sanglerke)
another Skylark
adult female Wheatear (steinskvett) who had fledged young nearby
juvenile Whitethroat (tornsanger)
more juv Whitethroats
and even more
and the whole brood of seven in this picture although there may have been one more
juvenile Willow Warbler (løvsanger)
one of the male Red-backed Shrikes in Maridalen. We also saw the other catching a dragonfly in flight
this male Yellowhammer (gulsurv) had also caught a dragonfly although I am not sure of what type
Roe Deer mum and two youngsters
male Common Rosefinch. The area where I believe they had their nest has been "cleaned up" since yesterday afternoon and all vegetation and saplings cut down. Who and why I do not know
Black-throated Divers nest from last week
And the sound of a singing Quail in Maridalen that I popped out to hopefully see but as usual failed to on Tuesday evening after Per Christian had found it on Monday night (although it could well be the same bird first heard elsewhere in the Dale by Halvard H a couple of weeks ago)
