My efforts to locate the Maridalen HB nest have eventually
been successful but after putting in the ground work myself without finding it
I phoned a friend and outsourced the glory shot to Per Christian who was able
to send me photos of the nest whilst I was in Tromsø this weekend.
I had had a number more sightings and felt certain I have
narrowed down the area to a radius of under 250 metres. In addition to, I
think, my periods watching in the nest area coinciding with periods when the
adult(s) were not making frequent visits to the I believe that the adults don’t
fly directly either to or from the nest and probably fly quite a distance
through the forest which will of course make finding the nest more difficult. Before
finding the nest I did have confirmation of nesting when I saw a juvenile fly
out of a wood that was close to my watch point on 24th (although it
would turn out this was not where the nest was) and then slowly circle before
flying north to the same area the ad Male has frequently flown to.
The young are supposed to spend quite some time returning to
the nest for food deliveries (although I have not noticed this with the 3 nests
I have followed before) so continued observations would hopefully reveal this
and there may well have been another unfledged juvenile still on the nest (at this time both young were still on my other nest). And this is
what PC witnessed on 30th August when he saw an adult flying into a
wood and then heard a young begging for food before finding both adult and
young on the nest. Both then flew off and the young continued begging and the
adult alarm calling elsewhere in the wood. The nest was only 100metres from
where I had spent around 11 hours, spread over 4 days, watching and was in a wood I initially thought could hold the nest based on where I had seen birds flying but a
walk through the small wood revealed no large spruce trees which I thought were
the preferred nest tree. They had however chosen a deciduous tree though - an
aspen (osp) – and the nest was low down (no more than 10metres up) . Upon seeing
the nest when I visited on 31st I realised I had actually noticed it
when I checked this wood but hadn’t even bothered raising my bins as I assumed
it was just a jumble of twigs (it was in the wrong type of tree and too low
down….). So, I have definitely learnt a lesson.
The fact that birds have bred in Maridalen both this year
and last (and who knows maybe before) and have therefore been present end of
May/beginning of June to end of August/beginning of September without hardly
ever being seen is quite extraordinary and I believe owes more to their cryptic
nature than my dire field skills…😉. The nest is also close
to paths and a farm and it yet again amazes me how close shy raptors will breed
to people.
I have only with certainty seen the male of this years nest
and it is clear from his plumage that he is the same bird that I saw last August
flying with wasp comb into exactly the same area as this years nest. I did see
and photo a female last year that I assume is his mate but had no definite sighting
of a female at all this year…
posts from 2024:
https://oslobirder.blogspot.com/2024/09/late-summer-bopping.html
https://oslobirder.blogspot.com/2024/08/bop-photos.html
Hopefully they will nest again next year and this location will
be much easier to observe than the other, regular, nest and allow me to
document even more of the life cycle of this enigmatic species.
The juvenile on 24 August is the (joint) second earliest
photo documented 1cy Honey Buzzard in Norway and may well be the first fledged
bird as the photo from 20 August looks to me to be of a bird taken close to the
nest.
There are a surprisingly high number of records of
1cy birds before 24 August though including 6 in July, one of which is
«approved», 13 in the first week of August of which 3 are «approved» and 15 in
the second week with 5 of these «approved». All of these records should be
expunged from the records and there are many names as well as
records committees who should update their knowledge on the breeding cycle of
Honey Buzzards and what 1cy birds look like… (the same applies to Hobby and
don’t get me started on all the impossibly early spring records of both of
these species..).
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| the empty Maridalen Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) nest. Low down in a deciduous tree and easily viewable. Hopefully it will be used again in 2026 - just 9 months to wait... |
Mobile shots :
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| I cannot see why they have chosen this branch in this tree but then again I'm not a Honey Buzzard |
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| juvenile on 24th August |
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| The male over the nest site on 21st August. My pictures this year were far worse than I managed last year (see links above and a comparable picture below) |
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| 27th August 2024 when he was in clear moult which is not the case in 2025 |
