Easter reprieves itself

I may have had to leave Oslo but Easter did eventually deliver the always hoped for good birding of the spring festive season.

There was also some luck involved. I am sleeping poorly at the moment which often results in me leaving the house for a quick early trip to Maridalen. On Monday though I awoke at 02:50 and feeling rather perky I decided to get up and put in action a plan I had been hatching: head north to Hedmark to find some Great Grey Owl nest sites, twitch a returning Yellow-legged Gull in Hamar and see anything else that might turn up.

The drive went quickly and when I had my first stop at 5am the skies were lightening up and as I got out of the car to scan some recently felled forest there was a cacophany of noise from thrushes but also clearly larger birds. The Black Grouse were not to mistake but I was at a bit of a loss as to another bird. It reminded me a bit of Red-throated Diver but the noise was coming from a pine tree… I could just make out a large bird and it was a female Capercaille and another was calling close by. This is the peak time for leks so I was not sure why they were not at a lek but maybe they have already mated. Another noise also caught my attention and I had a feeling I knew what it might be. I walked towards the noise and saw what was clearly a raptor nest in a large pine and there was a big heading sticking up from it - I had found Great Grey Owls in a natural nest! What was even better was the terrain meant I could look down on to the nest - I had struck gold. The female was clearly calling to let her mate know she was hungry and quite soon I was able to watch him fly in with a vole for her which caused her to call lots. The male then spotted and flew towards me to check me out😊 

This is the first nest I have found completely on my own so I was chuffed.

I enjoyed the owls for a bit and then drove on hoping to find more owls hunting. That didn’t happen but I had three more female Capers and I visited a platform I knew about and had a GG on it but it couldn’t beat «my» nest.

Hamar and a dirty twitch followed and I saw the gull even if I didn’t manage any photos but was just happy with the tick and couldn’t wait to leave the town. The nearby delta at Åkersvika was a bit disappointing but a nearby Rookery was a novel sight for me as this species it incredibly local in Norway.

I had by now got news of a booming Bitteren and a singing Black Redstart back Oslo way and although it was only 11am the day already felt old. I decided that the Black Red would be enough for the day as it was literally on the way home and was able to see it fairly quickly.

The Bittern only had to wait a day and successfully twitched yesterday. It was at Hellesjøvannet where I heard the last of my only two other Norwegian Bitterns back in 2013 but unlike then I actually saw the bird this time and managed a fairly decent recording of the booms. Just like with GGO the very deep «song» is very difficult to localise as it is almost louder the further away it is and in addition it only sang every 20-30 minutes but eventually we reckoned it had to be less than 100m from us in a stretch of reeds that were less than 10m wide. I thought the thermal imager would make it easy to find but it picked up nothing. I switched to continual scanning with the scope and after a looong time it was finally there walking through the reeds. I took up my camera but didn’t even know where to point it and returning to the scope it had vanished again.

female Great Grey Owl (lappugle) on the nest before sunsrise

the male checking me out after it had delivered a vole to his mate

filming the nest after sunrise

enjoying? the sun. For a species that is built to survive freezing winters and hunt in snow I am surprised at how far south they have started breeding and they do not seem to keen on strong sunlight

the nest from below. I am not sure which raptor built it

this short video is taken with the superzoom and phone and you can hear the begging calls of the female. I need to edit videos I took with the bazooka which include the food delivery and will post later

the platform nest

the female Capercaille (storfugl) that I saw after having first heard it and not recognised the call

The call can be heard in this video after footage of another female I had along the road. At the end some distant Black Grouse (orrfugl) can also be heard

these two females were far more easy to observe. They had very different plumages with one being much paler and also having a large red skin area above the eye. I do not know if this is age related

this female was darker and lacked an obvious area of red skin above the eye

the paler female with a lot of red above the eye and also an almost male like "beard"

this one also puffed herself up in a way which I considered to be male like

the paler bird

male Black Redstart (svartrødstjert). The male that bred at the same site last year was a 2cy whereas this bird is a full adult. It is therefore reasonable to assume it is the same bird one year older

Hellesjøvannet on a cold (only +5) and wet (constant drizzle) day which maybe explains the infrequent booming from the Bittern (rørdrum) which chose to boom from the narrow belt of reeds in the middle rather than the more extensive reedbed to the right

The booming can be heard surprisingly well in this video which is much better than the video in my post from 2013 which I have linked to above. As it sang so infrequently I only managed to press the record button after it first started so it lacks the initial noises. The video has 4 different sequences.

a Rookery close to Hamar. The species is exceptionally local in Norway but it clearly has n problem being close to people. In addition to the rookery being right by houses the birds were also feeding in gardens

even if I didn't manage a picture of my first Norwegian Yellow-legged Gull (which is paired to a Lesser Black-backed) I did manage a photo of mating Lesser Black-backeds which are ignoring the plastic owl which is supposed to scare them off

the drizzle at Hellesjøvannet had caused a concentration of all three hirundines. Here a Sand Martin (sandsvale)

Sand Martin and Swallow (låvesvale)

it may be a pants photo but all three species are visible

I spent little time in Maridalen and this was the highlight - two female Pintail (stjertand). This is not an annual species and previously has always been pairs or single males so two females was something different