Summer holiday episode 1- Nightjars

Nightjar (nattravn)

As usual our summer holiday has started with a few days at the cabin we are so lucky to be able to borrow just south of Oslo. I would normally be butterflying here and commenting on the large number of species I have seen but this year despite it being sunny there have been very few species (in stark contrast to Oslo). In fact I have only seen 11 species plus a couple of interesting moths. I have no good reason for the lack of butterflies but hopefully it is just timing.

The only specific birding I have done is to look for the Nightjars we found last year. They have moved 500m from last year but er had 4 birds flying together that very memorably flew right over our heads. Activity started very late (23:25) so my plans of great photos will have to wait for another occasion.

This video is taken with the tripod mounted bazooka

This video was taken by Jr on her phone

Habitat shot at 22:48

Birding (limited) update

Much of my limited birding time the last week went towards working out the situation regarding breeding (or perhaps non-breeding) Lapwings and Little Ringed Plovers at Maridalsvannet. I wil blog about that later once I have the full picture but here are a few of the other birding highlights from the last week.

Three-toed Woodpeckers were easy to find until the beginning of June until I lost track of where they were which coincides with them starting to nest. I saw the female again on 2 June and she was clearly collecting food but it wasn’t until 12 June that the nest was found by Per Christian. I visited the same day and they were nesting right where I had my last observation in May. The young were making so much noise that it would have been impossible to walk by and not be aware of them although on my visits to the nest I have been amazed at how many “civilians” have walked past without turning their head.

I had only my second record of Common Rosefinch in Maridalen this year with a one day only singing red male and this year (and also last year) are worryingly poor for the species. Another species which seems scarce this year is Honey Buzzard and I had only y second sighting with a bird seemingly migrating north over the valley. Visits to last years nest have revealed no sign of activity but they could still breed.

Nocturnal visits have revealed quite a few Tawny Owls and the family I located a while ago showed quite well by the road one evening.

I also found time to twitch a Little Tern at the (nearly) mighty Svellet which was a Norwegian tick for me. I also twitched a Sandwich Tern at Fornebu which was seen whilst I was there (shopping with the kids) but despite a quick response I failed to see them and have now relegated this species to the list of ones I have accepted I will never see in Norway.

female Three-toed Woodpecker (tretåspett) with food

and the male

here I think he was regurgitating a maggot and then swallowed it himself

young Tawny Owl (kattugle) at 23:43

my only red Common Rosefinch (rosenfink) so far this year

and the only Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) that has come within photo range

my first Norwegian Little Tern (dvergterne)

Oslo butterflying

I live off my birding experiences from the mountains for a long time and coming back to Oslo outside of the migration can feel like a bit of an anti-climax even though I have had a number of exciting encounters with breeding birds this last week. I will blog about that soon but in the meantime it is time for my first dedicated butterfly post of 2022.I have also been very under the weather and have not had the energy for very much at all so sitting in the sun and watching colourful insects in flower meadows has been good for the soul.

The early spring was very hot and dry and there were large numbers of the small number of early emerging species. We then had a cool and wet period when there was pretty much nothing to see but the last week has seen a return to warm dry weather and a new emergence of butterflies although dragonflies have not really emerged yet. I have therefore spent more time looking down than up but have been rewarded handsomely. Over the last two years I have discovered some good places in Maridalen for butterflies where there are lots of flowers, grass of varying heights and a closeness to the forest. I thought I knew this area quite well but was excited to discover a new species in the form of Northern Brown Argus (sankthansblåvinge) plus new sites for Green-underside Blue (kløverblåvinge) and Grizzled Skipper (bakkesmyger) which are locally scarce. In total I recorded 19 butterfly species in Maridalen this week but I was not entirely happy with this and felt the need to drive 20 minutes to an area in the south east of the city which seems to attract a number of species that seem to then have problems expanding further north west (maybe the urban sprawl forms a barrier). Here I discovered a long wished species, namely Northern Chequered Skipper (svartflekksmyger) which was a lifer plus my first Oslo sightings of Amanda’s Blue (sølvblåvinge) and Pearly Heath (perleringvinge). Along with other species recorded I ended up with 25 species of butterfly in Oslo this week and a new Oslo total of 49 species and a Norway total of 62 species which I am quite happy with but still gives me lots to look for.

male Northern Chequered Skipper (svartflekksmyger) -a species I have long wanted to see and which only required a 20 minute drive from home

Amanda's Blue (sølvblåvinge) - my first Oslo sighting. Now that I have discovered the importance of checking EVERY blue in an area (rather than assuming they are all the same species) I am discovering more and more species although will soon run out of new ones to find

Pearly Heath (perleringvinge) is really expanding north in Norway

Northern Brown Argus (sankthansblåvinge) - my first Oslo record where it seems to be genuinely rare

Note how the upperparts suddenly appear blue

Green-underside Blue (kløverblåvinge) has either being greatly overlooked in the past or is expanding quickly

the similar and far commoner Mazarine Blue (engblåvinge)

a Mazarine at the back with a larger and far commoner Common Blue (tiriltungeblåvinge)

female Common Blue

Grizzled Skipper (bakkesmyger) - first time I have photographed the underwing

Dingy Skipper (tiriltingesmyger) are not that dingy

Large Skipper (engsmyger)

not sure I can remember seeing the underwing of a Speckled Wood (skogringvinge) before

my first Large Wall Brown (klipperingvinge) of the year. I have yet to record the very similar although earlier flying Northern Wall Brown (bergringvinge) which must be the most misidentified butterfly in Norway

a Small Pearl-bordered Fritillart (brunflekket perlemorvinge)

and the similar Pearl-bordered Fritillary (rødflekket perlemorvinge) which appears slightly earlier

Heath Fritillary (marimjellerutevinge) is fairly common around Oslo but I have yet to see the rare False Heath Fritillary (mørk rutevinge)

and a crab spider (kameleonedderkopp) that likes to lie in wait and eat butterflies

Videos from the mountains

It took a while and I have been through my videos. I find these are far better reminder of what I experienced than just the photos. Also some landscape shots taken with my mobile.

view over the lake of Vinstre with Bitihorn in the background

habitat of Red-necked Phalarope - there are many lakes that look like this but very few phalaropes!

Bitihorn reflected in a pool that I thought should hold Phalaropes but they thought otherwise

The Magnificent Norwegian Mountains!

WARNING - THIS POST IS LOOOOOONG!

I never got round to properly blogging about last weekend in the mountains before I headed up there again to guide Jack so this post Is a combination of the two.

The long weekend was in good weather – mostly sunny with little wind and I had a fantastic visit to the Great Snipe on the first night. The last two years have taught me that in late May and early June the males are active early on and can even be observed in the sun so I was on site already at 20.30. I heard birds displaying just away from the lek as I walked up and the sun was still shining strongly. It took a while before birds displayed on the lek but they were not visible and initially it was many minutes between every round of “song” but at 21.35 I spied a close bird and the sun was still golden! It wasn’t very active and mostly just stood there but just as it started to display with a bit more frequency (other unseen birds were really warming up) the sun went behind a large cloud and I could see that it would not come out again before the sun disappeared before good behind a rather inconveniently placed mountain. As I was knackered I decided to call it a day and left the lek at 22.15 which is before the action really starts for proper.

A couple of short visits to Valdresflya really paid off and Dotterel, Temminck’s Stint, Shore Lark, Snow Bunting, Bluethroat and best of all 3 Long-tailed Skuas that showed really well. The only raptor or owl I saw was a single Kestrel and it was clearly not a rodent year and the skuas will therefore not breed but they were hanging around with Common Gulls finding food on the ground.

My trip with Jack was some of the most intense birding I have done. I picked Jack up at 20:45 on Wednesday evening and returned to Oslo at 21:00 on Thursday without a second’s sleep and just-non stop birding. We covered 700km (so cannot claim to have been environmentally friendly) and apart from a few stops to eat and keep our energy up it was just bird, bird, bird. We visited my usual sites and scored the same species I had seen just a few days previously with the exception of the skuas (due to the lack of Lemmings them may well have moved off completely) and additional birds we added were many – Golden Eagle, Red-necked Phalarope, Siberian Jay, Long-tailed Duck, Velvet & Common Scoter, Arctic Tern, Lapland Bunting, Merlin, Willow and Black Grouse plus 3 very unexpected species (given where we were) Taiga Bean Goose, Red-backed Shrike and Icterine Warbler. It was a fantastic 24 hours with perfect weather and Jack notched up 9 lifers which we added as 5 before 9am and then 9 before 5pm (sounded cooler at the time 😉 ).

We arrived at the Great Snipe lek at 00:30 and there was intense action. There were 5 males (and possibly a female) and they hardly stopped until 03:00 when a couple of birds flew off the lek and then we just heard infrequent song until we left a bit later. It was light enough for us to see what was going on and the males would jump around, chase each other move around the lek but there was a clear centre which they gravitated towards. Whilst enjoying this we had roding Woodcock, drumming Common Snipe, singing Cuckoo, calling Willow and Black Grouse and singing Robins, Redwings, Song Thrush and Blackbirds that did not stop singing although there was a noticeable increase in the chorus after about 2 am and the first Willow Warbler sang around 02:50.

Waders were around in reasonable numbers but ducks were very scarce. The lakes on Valdresflya were still 95% frozen which explains why there were so few there but the nearby large and lower lakes had very few ducks waiting to go up to their nesting sites. Bluethroats were also very scarce and were present at under half the levels I have found in previous years.

I also took a lot of video but will save that for a new post as I have yet to go through all the files There are a lot of photos though! 😊

Red-necked Phalarope (svømmesnipe). We saw 4 birds together and all looked to be FEmales

Lapland Bunting (lappspurv) - we had quite a few singing males but all in a very small area and no females. This species is becoming rare and localised in southern Norway

Long-tailed Skua (fjelljo)

three birds

Dotterel (boltit) - females were still displaying

same bird photoshopped

Great Snipe (dobbeltbekkasin)

picture taken at 21:39

21:49 after the cloud came

01:59 by torch light

02:33 at 1/50 second

Snow Bunting (snøspurv) - I don't see them every year but they were especially numerous this year although I only saw singing males

Temminck's Stints - perhaps the birds that stopped off at Maridalsvannet in May

Woodcock (rugde) same bird photoshopped

Ringed Plover (sandlo)

Shore Lark (fjellerke)

Bluethroat (blåstrupe)

Ringed Plover and Dunlin (myrsnipe)

Two immature Golden Eagles (kongeørn)

display?

Golden Plover (heilo)

male Kestrel (tårnfalk)

male (Grey-headed) Yellow Wagtail (såerle / gulerle)

and a female

Siberian Jay (lavskrike)

Rarest bird of the trip a Taiga Bean Goose (taigasædgås)

here with a pair of Red-breasted Merganser (siland) showing what a large bird it was

it had some fishing line around its left leg but this didn't seem to be causing it any problems

singing Cuckoos (gjøk) were a constant theme but this bird singing in flight over a lake was a new experience

a male Red-backed Shrike (tornskate) at over 1000m was not expected

this is how the (female) Redpolls (gråsisik) look in this area (this year)

female Merlin (dvergfalk) nesting in a roadside Hooded Crows nest. I have seen them nesting here before