Rediscovery

Despite having had Maridalen as my local patch for over 15 years it is still large enough that I can discover new and exciting areas and there are also areas that I have forgotten about and then rediscover. Today was about rediscovering. I was looking for a place to walk the Beast in the shade (temperatures reached 20C today with little wind) and decided to follow up a tip about Hazel Grouse which I knew would involve shade – two birds with one stone and all that.

The same area has previously held Three-toed Woodpeckers and was close enough to where all the excitement has been this year that I thought I may relocate the new pair which after having seen off one toe, three toe had gone missing. I succeeded royally and even witnessed mating! There will eventually be a dedicated post to the Three toes but I'll post a couple of pics now.

And I found a Hazel Grouse 😊 which even allowed itself to be photographed on a dark forest floor but the camera chose to focus on the sunlight areas either behnd or in front of it.

male Hazel Grouse (jerpe) in habitat

attempts to zoom in did not focus correctly..

but I did get one focused (and cropped) picture but the shutter speed at 1/800s resulted in ISO6400 so it is a bit grainy

female Three-toed Woodpecker (tretåspett)

and mating!

here the Beast pulled on the lead but the birds just stayed in shot

the male before the act. He is a particularly lazy male and lets the females fight over him and do most of the drumming