Back again

I felt a need to post, no matter how briefly, a few days ago as a very close friend of min recently took his own life and it has been a very strange and emotional time and a reminder to me of the need to communicate. Birding has been, as it always is, a good way for me to keep myself in balance and I have not been spending time in front of the computer or editing photos.

I have this evening found a few more photos and videos from the last week in Maridalen which show a bit how things are there. Autumn migration is starting and the hope is always for something very exciting to turn up although currently I am more aware of the breeding birds disappearing.

adult Black-throated Divers (storlom) on Maridalsvannet. The single small juvenile that was on the lake earlier in the summer has disappeared but up to 11 adults have been on the lake

In this video of Red-throated Divers (smålom) which have not bred on Maridalsvannet but have now moved here from their nearby breeding ponds you can see a juvenile that is begging for food by stroking its parents throat with its bill

a visit to Svellet with Jr Jr to give her some driving practice (her driving test is coming up) looked like it would be very promising but there was no birding gold at the end of the rainbow

a caterpillar of a Pine Hawk-moth (furusvermer) Sphinx pinastri

and the caterpillar of Elephant Hawk-moth (stor snabelsvermer) Deilephila elpenor shown in the video in my last post. I found both of these wandering on roads and they are searching for places to turn into a pupa

Summer holidays 2025 - the start of the end

The final part of the summer holiday is beginning and for the first time since 2022 I will be back spending time at the cabin outside of Bodø, north of the Arctic Circle. Jr and I drove up starting from Oslo at 08:55 yesterday and we covered 1281km in 23 hours and 50 minutes with less than an hour of that used for sleep but including 5 stops for birding/butterflying and dog airing. When you drive north through the night in the middle of the summer it never gets dark and that helps keep tiredness as bay although once we got to the cabin we felt it.

Apart from the stops the drive up was extremely bird and animal free with the total of big/interesting species observed (excluding Cranes which are getting almost too common) being 2 Common Buzzard, 3 Kestrel, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Raven, 1 Fox, 1 Hare and 4 Moose. This is an appalling total!!

The stops were for Apollo butterfly which was a quick success, Pallid Harrier which was a dip although a male Hen Harrier did show, Ørin in Trøndelag for waders which was also a dip, Saltfjellet on the Arctic Circle where Red-necked Phalaropes and Ruff were good but no raptors or Long-tailed Skuas and finally 35 minutes from the cabin Klungsettvika where they were alarmingly few sea ducks but hopefully my stop was too fleeting and further visits will deliver more.

At the cabin a pair of Common Gulls has nested on the roof and two large young are still there with the parents guarding them - it will be a noisy stay!

Apollo butterfly - a beautiful beast of an insect

A bit more distant

There were also a couple of Hummingbird Hawk Moths (dvergsvermer)

Saltfjellet looking south

My first ever Lesser Teatblade orchid (småtveblad) which were tiny

Red-necked Phalaropes (svømmesnipe)

The view from the cabin and I have already seen Common Porpoise (nise) and Arctic Skua (tyvjo)

I heard the Porpoises (nise) before I saw them

Head scratching

When I make statements that spring migrations is over that is of course not correct and we are now in the period, right at the end of the season, where the most exciting birds can turn up.

I was quite sure I heard a Serin in Maridalen on Tuesday but it was too brief to be sure and it is only now that the “proper” nocturnal singer season begins as the vegetation become high enough to hide, and support, the high summer birds. There are unfortunately few signs that this year will be very productive at night with next to no records so far in SE Norway of species like Corncrake, Quail, Spotted Crake, Grasshopper, River or Blyth’s Reed Warblers. And a trip into Maridalen with Jack last night revealed just a single Marsh Warbler with no joy with the Nightjars either.

Tomorrow, I am off with Conor to the cabin in Valdres for third time and Jack will be joining us. Whilst we are enjoying mountain birds galore I am sure that Oslo will experience a rush of rares!

Yesterday I added Oslo #183 to my list with a successful twitch to see 10 Dark-bellied Brent Geese that have been in the fjord for a couple of days and I can only hope that any other attempted Oslo twitches this year will go so smoothly (as failed twitches quickly put me off the idea for a long time).

 

Dark-bellied Brent Geese (ringgås)

Birding wise, Maridalen has revealed more surprises, head scratching and joy on the Lapwing front. The two (re)nesting pairs are still safely on their nests and have survived thunderstorms and huge amounts of rain. Lots of gulls feeding in the fields and which could take the eggs are kept at a distance by the ever vigilant males so by around 20 June we should have young although by then the crop will have grown so high that it will probably not be possible to see them anymore. The real surprise though which still has me scratching my head came on the other, original field where I had seen a brood of 4 recently hatched young on 23 May. I did not see them again until 28 May when an adult was accompanied by 2 young so it looked like 2 had been lost. But yesterday, 29 May, it was all very confusing. There were 4 adults on the field, seemingly 2 pairs about 200m from each other. I also saw that there was a youngster with each “pair” and then after a long time managed to see that there were actually 2 young with each pair. All the young looked to be about a week old and that leaves me with some questions I suspect I will never get an answer to.

Is there now a fourth breeding pair that has nestedsuccessfully without me having any clue?

Or, has the original brood of 4 somehow been split in two and possibly been adopted by another pair?

The two sets of young remained separate in both the morning and afternoon so it was not just a temporary split.

Lapwing (vipe) family #1

 

young look to be about a week old

family 2

young here also look about the same age

nest 1

nest 2

The Whooper Swans are still on “their” nest but if it is the Mute Swan eggs that they (although I think it is only the female that has been on the nest) are incubating then they should be hatching any day soon as I first saw the Mutes on the nest 22 April and the incubation period is around 36 days.

The Hobbies have disappeared again although I did discover the Hooded Crows nest that had clearly attracted them to the site where they were on Monday and Tuesday. They should be laying eggs any day soon so I hope I find their chosen site.

At a Black Woodpecker nest that I have not spent much time observing this year (although I hear them a lot) I was aware that the first youngster left the nest on 24 May. It was therefore very surprising to see another youngster still in the nest yesterday, 5 days later. The male was calling constantly from a nearby tree in attempt to lure it out but without success whilst we were there. Owls and raptors usually have a wide range of ages for their young as they start incubating from the first egg but I thought woodpeckers only started incubating once the whole clutch was laid so for there to be such a difference in development of the young is unusual unless this last youngster is in some way injured and unable to leave the nest.

Black Woodpecker (svartspett) young

dad

here calling to get to get Jr out of the nest

Bugs are of course causing me to look down and I had a new and long awaited species with a Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk Moth (smalkantet humlesvermer). I found it originally in constant movement and could not see which of the two similar species it was (Broad-bordered is commoner and one I have seen before) but when a cloud covered the sun it immediately started nectaring and I was able to see it well and get photos. I have previously seen either Narrow or Broad-bordered buzzing past me in Maridalen but this is the first time I have been able to identify one to species.

Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk Moth (smalkantet humlesvermer)

a male Orange Tip (aurorasommerfugl)

and my first Heath Fritillary (marimjellerutevinge) of the year

there are a lot of cats in Maridalen and they undoubtedly take a lot of birds although this one will be viewed favourably by most people as it has "only" taken a rodent

Bugs & Birds

Yesterday, I took only my second trip of the year out to the islands of the Oslofjord and it was a fairly rewarding trip even if it was bugs more than birds that featured. I had hoped for a few waders or maybe a Y-b Warbler but the only warbler I had was a single Chiffchaff and there were only two waders – a Knot and a Common Sandpiper. Knot is a good Oslo bird though and a late Common Tern was also noteworthy.

The undoubted bug highlight was a Hummingbird Hawkmoth which fed just metres away from me and gave me my best ever views of the species. Bug #2 was Brown Hairstreak at a, for me, new location for the species. I noticed that there was a lot of blackthorn (slåpetorn) and decided to walk close to it to see if there were any butterflies and sure enough two females flew up and then landed in trees and showed very well.

Today a quick check of Nordre Øyeren and Maridalen revealed my first Great Grey Shrikes of the autumn at both sites indicating that the species is now on the move.

Hummingbird Hawkmoth (dagsvermer)

note the probiscous inside the flower

it really is long!

female Brown Hairstreak (slåpetornstjertvinge)

and the other female

juvenile Common Tern (makrelterne)

much is written about the Oslo fjord being "dead" but the large numbers of Cormorants are witness to large numbers of fish

juvenile Knot (polarsnipe)

Great Grey Shrike (varsler) at Nordre Øyeren

and the bird in Maridalen..

which was chasing a Yellowhammer (gulspurv)

a late Osprey (fiskeørn) with a flock of Jackdaws (kaie)

Buzzard (musvåk) in Maridalen

a Coot (sothøne) on Maridalsvannet. This is only my second record there and only the fourth ever. I noticed a bird in the middle of the lake whilst out with the Mrs on Sunday and took some pictures but only looked at them today and found out what it was.

Goosander (laksand) on Maridalsvannet. Probably 2 family groups

and a fox