2018
must go down as a good year. I had a lot of guiding in the spring and early
summer and with Great Grey and Hawk Owls in Hedmark, Great Snipe and Dotterel
in Oppland and Red-breasted Flycatchers closer to home there were always some
special species to show.
I
also managed to find some good birds with Norway’s 6th Greater Spotted Eagle, 8th Pied-billed
Grebe and and refinding (for the 4th succesive year) Norway’s 3rd (Asian) White-winged Scoter topping the bill.
This year’s Værøy trip was not blessed with the best weather but a Red-flanked
Bluetail ensured that I was a happy camper and a couple days with Kjell in
Jæren in November gave real quality birding.
My
year list of 253 was a very respectable total and included a surprising 8
Norwegian ticks: White-backed Woodpecker, Black-throated Thrush, Stonechat,
Pied-billed Grebe, Brown Shrike, Buff-bellied Pipit, Greater Spotted Eagle and
Desert Wheatear. With the long overdue pecker and chat, I have now seen all of
Norway’s breeding species with the exception of Leaches Petrel which will
require some luck to see. My Akershus year list of 217 was a new record and was
a result of it being a good year rather than a lot of twitching. 180
species in Oslo was also very respectable and of these the 138 were in the
mighty Maridalen. When I first started to record an Oslo list in 2012, 150
species was considered a real milestone so it just goes to show what a little
focus on a local patch can achieve. Two species that were alarmingly scarce this year were Wryneck and Wood Warbler. Wryneck had been relatively numerous in 2017 but Wood Warbler was also very scarce in 2016 but had been relatively numerous in 2015. It will be interesting to see their numbers in 2019.
January
started with the Firecrest and Bearded Tits surviving the cold and very snowy
winter at Fornebu and an Arctic Redpoll in Oslo’s Botanical Garden. Kingfishers
and Hawk Owl were also to be found and some warm southerly
winds on 18 January brought two very unseasonal Lapwings.
Arctic Redpoll (polarsisik) with a Lesser or Common Redpoll at Oslo Botanical Garden
The Firecrest (rødtoppfuglekonge) survived until February at Fornebu
Kingfisher (isfugl)
Hawk Owl (haukugle)
a Sparrowhawk (spurvehauk) made a kill in the garden and showed ridiculously well
In
February I guided a group of Spaniards in Hedmark looking for taiga
specialities and we scored big time with Pine Grosbeak, Hawk Owl and Siberian
Jay. Highlight of the month for me though was finally seeing a White-backed Woodpecker in
Norway.
Pygmy Owl (spurveugle) in Maridalen in February
Pine Grosbeaks (konglebit) in Hedmark
Hawk Owl (haukugle) in Hedmark
Siberian Jay (lavskrike) in Hedmark
Finally, a White-backed Woodpecker (hvitryggspett)
March
started with an NSKF (rarities committee meeting) at Jæren and here I was able
to tick Black-throated Thrush plus see a male Steller’s Eider and best of all
close views of Woodcocks feeding on Kjell’s lawn. A Glaucous Gull near Drammen gave exceptional views as it hung around ice fishermen waiting for cast offs.
Black-throated Thrush (svartstrupetrost)
Steller's Eider (stellerand)
Woodcock (rugde)
Glaucous Gull (polarmåke)
April
started very wintery which caused the Scottish Bean Geese lots of problems and
they staged for most of the time at a new site further south in Østfold and a
few trips here proved very birdy at the start of the month and I was able to
show Magnus and Denise from Scotland “their” birds on the spring staging
grounds. Flocks of Snow Buntings graced Maridalen and the wintery conditions elsewhere made a relatively ice free Fornebu very productive for a short period with Black Redstarts, Shore Larks and
the absolute highlight for me being finding a male Stonechat! Purple Sandpipers
were yet again a spring feature at Bygdøy and were ridiculously tame at times. My search for a self found male Pallid Harrier continued with a second hybrid male at Årnestangen..
Snow Buntings (snøspurv) in Maridalen
Purple Sandpiper (fjæreplytt) at Bygdøy
Stonechat (svartstrupe) at Fornebu
Hybrid Pallid x Hen Harrier (stepp x myrhauk) at Årnestangen
and a pure Hen Harrier same place
May (and June) saw a number of guiding trips to Hedmark with Great Grey and Hawk Owls, Ortolan
Buntings and Slavonian Grebes on the menu. A family trip to Oslo’s islands
resulted in a male Steller’s Eider which as truly unexpected find and a first
for Oslo. Red-breasted Flycatchers returned to Maridalen and Thrush
Nightingales seem to have established themselves at Fornebu. A singing River
Warbler in Maridalen is a species that threatens to establish itself but never
quite manages to.
Thrush Nightingale (nattergal) at Fornebu
Red-breasted Flycatcher (dvergfluesnapper) in Maridalen
River Warbler (elvesanger) in Maridalen
an unusually good view of a Garganey (knekkand) at Årnestangen
Great Grey Owl (lappugle)
Migration
is more or less over by June but there are a few species that migrate late and
Broad-billed Sandpiper is one of these and two birds showed well at Årnestangen
at the beginning of the month. I had many more exciting guiding trips to Hedmark
and also to Oppland where Great Snipe, Dotterel and Long-tailed Skua topped the
bill.
In
Maridalen a breeding pair of Three-toed Woodpeckers gave me a rare opportunity
to see this species on demand.
I had a long post in December last year detailing the real
life soap opera that Red-breasted Flycatchers entertained us with in 2017. 2018
was a bit less racy but there was still drama.
In 2017 we had record numbers of Red-breasted Flycatchers
around Oslo including the second recorded successful breeding record. In the
regular Sørkedalen locality we had two singing males but no sign of a female
and in Maridalen we also had two males plus a female (who at various times was
paired with both males) and 3 young that successfully fledged along with four
young Pied Flycatchers that believed their dad was a Red-breast… I was
therefore very excited to see what 2018 would bring. How many Red-breasted
Flycatchers would return, and would there be some Pied Flycatchers that sang
like a Red-breasted Flycatcher?
I have already alluded to the fact that Red-breasted
Flycatchers did indeed return and last years old male returned to Maridalen on 8
May which made him the first bird recorded in Norway in 2018 and must be
considered an early date regardless of year. The black spot in the left eye
ring confirmed his identity.
He sang in vain for a long time and checks of Sørkedalen
revealed no birds there so it looked like 2018 was going to be a shadow of 2017
but finally on 24 May a female turned up (she was definitely not around on 22
May based on the males behaviour but could have arrived 23 May when I did not
visit). She was a very well marked bird (old?) with an orange wash on her
throat which meant I initially thought she was a 2cy male. I was able to watch
their courtship which included the male taking her to potential nest sites
which she tested out. Things developed very quickly and the female soon
disappeared and the male stopped singing all of which indicated she was on eggs
but it was not until 5 June that I located the nest.
The nest was in exactly the same type of place as last year
– at the base of a piece of bark that was falling off a tree. This looks such a
precarious site but was successful last year and perhaps does suggest that it
is the same female? I followed the nest as regularly as I could and it was
lower than last years so easier to see but the female was so deep in the nest
that all that could be seen was her tail or beak tip. It wasn’t until 15 June
that the behaviour of the birds changed and it seemed clear that young must
have hatched. I put the camera on the extended tripod and holding this over the
nest was able to get a picture showing three just hatched young and three eggs!
With an assumed incubation time of 14 days then the last
egg would have been laid on 1 June and with 6 eggs (and one egg laid per day)
then the first egg would have been laid on 27 May. With the female arriving on
24 May (possibly 23rd) then they must surely have started nest building
already that day if they were to be able to lay eggs just 3 days later (BWP
gives nest building as 3 days).
On 16 June both parents were coming regularly with food to
the nest (although I did not try to find out how many young had finally hatched).
A visit on 21 June revealed disaster though. The bark and nest had fallen down
and were lying on the floor. This had probably happened a few days before and
there were no remains of eggs shells or young. Why did this happen? We had some
very strong winds that could have blown it down but a predator such as a Red Squirrel
of Great Spotted Woodpecker could easily have caused this damage.
This was of course not the outcome we wanted but nest
failure is part of the game and research in Poland showed that only 51% of
clutches resulted in at least one fledged youngster and of the failures 82%
were down to predation.
The male was heard singing in the area again on 22 June and
then on 24 June I saw the pair engaged in courtship behaviour so a second
breeding attempt seemed to be on the cards despite the late date but we had no
more observations after 28 June so don’t know what happened.
Although I did not observe or hear any Pied Flycatchers
that I suspected were the ones raised by the RB Fly last year there was a
female Pied Fly that raised young alone (as far as I could see) and I did see
the male Rb Fly around her nest box. I did not see any interaction between the
two birds but he did react aggressively to a male Pied Fly in the area so he
may have been up to his old tricks.
Some interesting papers on Red-breasted Flycatchers in Poland:
There
will not be much more birding between now and the new year but today I went
searching for some of the more interesting birds that have been around. I was
unable to find any Bearded Tits at Pollevannet and the snow has flattened most
of the reeds and is lying on top of them so it is possible that the reedbed has
become unsuitable for the tits although I expect they were just being their
usual difficult selves. Nearby the Kingfisher was still present but as equally
uncooperative as it has been on all my previous visits. A lucky picture showed
it to be ringed though and with so few ringed birds having been reported on ArtsObservasjoner
(although it could also be from Sweden?) there is a good chance that it was a
bird (also a male based on the all black bill) that was ringed only 6km away inAugust.
A
very quick stop at the tip in between Christmas shopping chores did not reveal
the Glaucous Gull although it was present today.
This Kingfisher (isfugl) is not easy to see but seems to find enough fish in the area which is a traditional wintering site for the species
this lucky shot showed it to be ringed
a more usual view of a Kingfisher
this Redpoll (gråsisik) has a very small bill which is a feature normally used to ID Arctic Redpoll and is nice and buffy around the head but the rump was not noticeably white
