Værøy 2023 Day 4

As it turned out Day 3 was not over when I blogged yesterday evening. I decided to go out with the thermal imager at 2130 and didn’t get back until 0030!!

First I found feeding Common Snipe, Jack Snipe and Golden Plover. Then I noticed the northern lights above me, then I started hearing nocmig (Redwing, Song Thrush, Snow Bunting and Reed Bunting) and then I joined in Storm Petrel ringing. It was a very succesful session with me seeing what I thought was an impressive 13 birds but the session carried on until 5am with 44 caught including 4 with Norwegian rings from before.

I was then buzzing a bit too much and couldn’t sleep until gone 2am and was awake at 7 so am rather tired now. BUT today m, or at least the early morning, has been a good day. When you walk out the door and the first bird that greets you is a clearly newly arrived Yellow-browed then you know the day has potential. New birds were discovered in quick succession with a Little Bunting, an Olive-backed Pipit and then a Red-flanked Bluetail all before breakfast. It felt natural to assume that once we searched more of the island as the day wore on that we would find something big. But in fact there was precious little to see after that. Two Grey-headed Woodpeckers were decent enough but not of the calibre that the morning glory had promised.

Red-flanked Bluetail (blåstjert). As can be seen this bird was caught and ringed (in a mist nest). Not quite as cool as finding one in the field but a great chance to see it up close

Look at that tail!

Olive-backed Pipit (sibirpiplerke)

Little Bunting (dvergspurv)

A glimpse of one of the six Yellow-browed Warblers (gulbrynsanger) I saw today

Arctic Redpoll (polarsisik)

Merlin (dvergfalk)

Waxwing (sidensvans)

Sedge Warbler (sivsanger) breeds on the island but is less than annual for us in September

A tristis Siberian Chiffchaff

The first Grey-headed Woodpecker (gråspett) hid in a rowan tree

Whilst the second was calling from the top of a hill

Storm Petrel (havsvale) caught for ringing

Red-flanked Bluetail

that tail!

The Red-flanked Bluetail that I got to see all too briefly on Thursday was looked for by a handful of birders on Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning but it was not until Sunday afternoon that the big guns were brought in and Knut Waagan refound it. After this all the local twitchers also got off their sofas and got to see it so a lot of people, including me, have a lot to thank Andreas and Knut for.

I went down this morning in absolutely fantastic weather with the Beast in tow and planned to give the bird an hour although with a cloudless night and also the first frost of the autumn I expected it to have done a bunk. Instead of walking around looking for it I decided to position myself and wait for it to come to me as reports yesterday had suggested it followed a fairly regular circuit around the area. After 45 minutes, during which time I had only seen two Blackbirds and a Chiffchaff, a movement (in fact I first saw the shadow) low down in a tree caused me to raise my bins and there it was! It was in a hurry though and efforts to get a photo all ended in failures until I managed one long range shot. There were three of us looking for the bird and we were able to half follow it through the undergrowth and it became apparent it was moving towards the path we were stood on. We stood back and then suddenly it was out feeding on the path. For maybe 20 seconds we had it at around 10 meters range until a runner scared it into some trees. I even managed a couple of in focus shots although the Beast was pulling on the leash so easy it was not.

Water Rails and a Kingfisher were calling from the bay at Koksa and on the way back to the car I put up my first Jack Snipe of the year so a very good morning was had 😊

Red-flanked Bluetail (blåstjert) feeding on a leafy path

and the flanks are indeed red

Spot the birdy. I though this was the picture I would have to be happy with

Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin) - the type of photo one usually gets of this species after it flies up from between your legs and you then fumble with the camera

Buzzards galore

With nice weather today I thought it was time to head east. A couple of days ago enormous numbers (ca.40,000) of White-fronted Geese passed through southern Sweden and I thought I would see if any had found there was to south eastern Norway. I was in luck and found 6 birds hiding away amongst a couple of thousand Greylag Geese at Kallaksjøen. There were also small numbers of Pink-footed, Barnacle and Canada Geese and quite a few dabbling duck (Mallard, Teal, Wigeon and a single Pintail) so it was all quite birdy. Four Cranes were the largest birds I saw during the day but the standout event of the day was provided by raptors and especially Common Buzzards. Today was clearly THE day of the autumn for Common Buzzards to move (large numbers were seen at a few coastal sites) and I had 91 in total with a maximum of 17 together. I also had 6 Rough-legged Buzzards, 10 Sparrowhawks, 3 Goshawks, 1 Merlin and 1 Peregrine giving me 112 raptors in total which I am sure is a Norwegian day record for me. It was very interesting watching the Buzzards and seeing first a couple starting to thermal and then suddenly they would be joined by other birds as if from nowhere before the larger group would then glide off and start thermalling again.

Four Bearded Tits at Hellesjøvannet were very noisy and flew high a couple of times, I had a Great Grey Shrike and also my first Twite of the autumn so I was quite happy with my day. Driving home though a message came through that offered the chance to make it even better. Andreas Gullberg had found a Red-flanked Bluetail at Fornebu! I was over an hour away and had the afternoon traffic to negotiate but made it Fornebu by 1615. The bird hadn’t been seen since Andreas found it and it took another 45 minutes before I saw it very briefy as it moved through trees tops loosely associating with Blue Tits and Chiffchaffs. It then vanished again before being refound and I then got to hear it calling – not the classic call that is reminiscent of a Pied Fly but a frog like croak which I don’t remember having heard from any of the three birds I have seen on Værøy.

There were no photos from me of the Bluetail and hardly any from the day as I forgot the battery to the bazooka (in the charger at home) and the battery in the superzoom went dry after 10 shots… Lesson learned.

Kallaksjøen is one of very few nature reserves in Norway that receives active management

and it was heaving with birds

familt party of european White-fronted Geese (tundragås)

a juv and adult in flight

male Bearded Tit (skjeggmeis), there were 2 males and 2 females

and a video of the Beardies flying around calling taken with the iphone

In the absence of a photo of today's Red-flanked Bluetail here is one I took earlier (Værøy 2018)

Værøy 2018 Final Day

This year’s Værøy trip feels like it is over before it started.

Yesterday finished with a Storm Petrel ringing session with 7 birds caught. These birds are truly amazing. It is one thing seeing them from a boat out at sea, but it is only when you see them in the hand that you appreciate quite how small and fragile they are. It is almost impossible to imagine how they lead such a truly pelagic life and don't ever seem to suffer from storms. Larger seabirds can often be "wrecked" by storms but not the tiniest of them all. I assume that they are able to fly in a tiny pocket of calm air just centimetres above the waves where they avoid the ravages of the storm.

It was calm overnight and we had expectations of new arrivals. My first bird was a Yb Warbler which is the first bird we have had in the north of the island and a clear new arrival. I also had a few newly arrived Chiffchaffs but not much else. I chose this morning to first head east from our house which Kjell did yesterday whilst Kjell headed west which I did yesterday. It should come as no surprise that Kjell again was the one who found something with another and seemingly newly arrived Red-flanked Bluetail! The bird gave is a bit of a run around before finally being seen by everyone. I had rattled off a couple of hundred pictures before checking how they were on the back of the camera but there were none and the camera said I had no memory card installed - but I knew I had put it in!! Checking it appeared not to have been pushed properly in but why had the camera allowed me to think   I was taking pictures? Well, I later discovered that the factory default setting is not warn you of a missing memory card. A big f*ck up from Canon if you ask me.

Luckily though the Bluetail showed again and even better so I did bag some good photos in the end.

In the afternoon I walked and walked around the gardens in the south without anything special to report for my efforts but my last bird of the trip was a Værøy tick. I drove back to the north to pick up Kjell before heading for the helicopter and we had a Grey-headed Woodpecker fly in off the sea from the north and then land on a hillside. We there then able to watch it clambering around on rocks looking for food. I have never seen this behaviour before although was aware they do it and was very happy to end Værøy 2018 like that.

No lifers, and hardly any year ticks, say enough about the quality of this years birding but that is part of the game and I wouldn't be without my annual trip. Kjell is staying on for at least another week and I look forward to him gripping me off with all sorts of rarities from both east and west.

Red-flanked Bluetail (blåstjert) 

Grey-headed Woodpecker (gråspett)

it looks like it is on vocanic rocks

adult Golden Eagle (kongeørn)

there are three leucistic Starlings in a flock of about 150 birds on Værøy and in flight definitely have you think Rosy Starling

Stor Petrel (havsvale)

Oslo Birder and Storm Petrel

my best Yb Warbler (gulbrynsanger) photo of the trip although shame the wings bars are not visible

Værøy Church as seen from the "forest"

leaving Værøy on the helicopter

and arriving in Bodø