Værøy arrival

I finally got to Værøy at 5pm to be met by the 5 (tired) members of the “Værøygjengen” who could report only 100 Yellow-browed Warblers today....

In the two hours before it got dark I only managed to see 10 of them. Best bird after that was my first dose of Hawkie for many months. Otherwise there wasn’t too much going on but I am looking forward to tomorrow!

This small area of vegetation held 5! Yellow-browed Warblers (gulbrynsanger)

and this is what one looks like

hello Hawkie, it is nice to make your acquaintance again

Waiting at the airport

With 2 hours to kill at Bodø airport before the helicopter to Værøy I had a wander around the local area including the graveyard (along with sewage farms these are usually rarity magnets).
I was pretty damned sure that I would unearth at least a single Yellow-browed Warblers given the nunbers just a few kilometres offshore but was to be disappointed.

However a flock of seven Arctic Redpolls showed well and were probably of the Greenland race hornemanni. Even though they were close it was too much trouble to get the camera out my bad but hopefully I will have some close encounters with this species on Værøy.

Not long now.....

I'm shortly off to the airport but thought I would give a little update on what I am arriving to on Værøy this afternoon.
Yesterday they ended up with 160 Yellow-browed Warblers, 2 Olive-backed Pipits, 2 Red-breasted Flycatchers, 4 Two-barred Crossbills and 9 Hawk Owls - one of which was taken by a Golden Eagle!!

Other islands off Nordland have held Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler, Pechora Pipit, Little Bunting and Arctic Warbler in the last couple of days so something much rarer will undoubtedly turn up. I'm nearly wetting myself with excitement1

Værøy calling

I just got a message that the guys had 70 (yes seventy) Yellow-browed Warblers (gulbrynsanger) on Værøy today. This is a Norwegian and almost certainly European record for this species.

I can't wait until Monday when I finally get up there. Easterly winds are forecast for almost all of next week so it should be good.

one of last years wing barred wonders

Viz Mig Magic

After a long pause it was time for a Rune and Rix outing. We left early with a goal of getting to Håbu at the southern tip of Hvaler just after dawn to see if there was any viz mig going down and boy was there!

We were on site just after 7am by which time it was already light and were greeted immediately by the sound of various finches. Crossbills (grankorsnebb), Bramblings (bjørkefink), Chaffinches (bokfink), Siskins (grønnsisik), Hawfinches (kjernebiter) and Redpolls (gråsisik) were continually going over. Most numerous were Brambling with around 2000 heading south east whilst we were there. We left at 0945 but the majority of birds moved over in the first hour. Chaffinches were not far behind with ca.1500 and Siskins numbered around 800.

45 Hawfinches was a pretty good total but were eclipsed by Crossbills which numbered 125. But it wasn’t just finches that were on the move. Great Spotted Woodpeckers (flaggspett) have been moving through Scandinavia this autumn in large numbers and we had 45 migrating over which was a new sight for me. We also had regular sightings of Woodlarks (trelerke) in the area although these birds didn’t seem to be migrating. Small numbers of tits were also moving through and we had 17 Coal Tits (svartmeis), 7 Long-tailed Tits (stjertmeis) and 2 Nuthatches (spettmeis) migrating. Three Lapland Buntings (lappsove) also flew over as did a single Ring Ouzel (ringtrost).

There were not that many birds in the bushes and certainly nothing scarce but many of the migrating birds would stop briefly before flying over to the next island and at one point four Great Spotted Woodpeckers were on the last telegraph pole on the island!

After the migration slowed down we checked out other sites on the island and had four Wood Larks in a garden which showed exceptionally well. Raptors were scarce but a juvenile Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) showed well if distantly as it headed south and thermalled for a while whilst gaining great height.

This Woodlark (trelerke) was one of four in a garden that showed exceptionally well

We headed towards Kurefjorden and Common Buzzards (musvåk) were a regular sight but sadly no Harriers of any description. At Kurefjorden there are still a number of waders and we had 104 Dunlin (myrsnipe) plus two each of Black-tailed (svarthalespove) and Bar-tailed Godwit (lappspove).

I am off to Værøy on Monday and the first birders arrived there this evening. In the couple of hours they had available in the evening they found Red-flanked Bluetail (blåstjert), 7 Yellow-browed Warblers (gulbrynsanger), plus more – I can’t wait!! Next door island of Røst had a staggering 44 Y-b Warblers today after recording just one yesterday so there has been a huge arrival today.

juvenile Slavonian Grebe (horndykker) at Sorgenfrigropa

a late Spotted Flycatcher (gråfluesnapper) close to Kurefjorden

This Painted Lady (tistelsommerful) was an unexpcted site

Hen Harrier

I set off again this morning to search for the Scottish Bean Geese but morning fog that didn’t lift until after 1030 yet again hampered my search. I wonder whether the geese just sit it out at their roost site in such conditions and wait for the fog to lift before heading for the feeding grounds or maybe they can navigate through the fog?

Instead of hanging around waiting for the fog to lift I instead headed into Aurskog-Høland with the hope of finding some raptors and especially a Pallid Harrier (steppehauk) as these are turning up now. I wasn’t to succeed on that score but prolonged and fairly close views of a male Hen Harrier (myrhauk) really shouldn’t be sniffed at. This was quartering the fields by Hellesjøvannet where I also had a hunting Peregrine (vandrefalk) as well as Buzzard (musvåk) and Goshawk (hønsehauk) so I did have a few raptors for my troubles. Buzzards were conspicuous throughout the day either soaring or walking in fields searching for food.

Male Hen Harrier (myrhauk)

This bird is moulting its flight feathers. Hen Harriers usually have five prominent "fingers" formed by the primary feathers at the wing tips whereas this bird only has four. The similar Pallid and Montagus Harriers (enghauk) only show four fingers and this is normally a feature that is used to separate them. However whilst moulting Hen Harrier can also, as in this case, only show four fingers. This male is unlikely to be confused with the other species but a female could definitely invite confusion.
It is not clear to me which primary is missing (or not fully grown) but is I suspect P6 (with P10 being the outermost primary)

The colours in this picture are a bit extreme and the dark trailing edge to the wing was not as black as this in reality. The single dark feather on the underwing could be a sign if immaturity although otherewise the bird looks fully adult

Perhaps best bird of the day, at least for me, was my first ever Lapland Bunting (lapspurv) in Akershus. This long overdue event was like a London bus and once I had my first one then the second came along in quick succession. The first flew up calling with some Meadow Pipits (heipiplerke) at Hellesjøvannet and the second flew south calling at Svindal overlooking Nordre Øyeren.

Sorting out warblers

A walk around Fornebu this morning failed to turn up anything new although the Smew (lappfiskand) is still present and a couple of Water Rails (vannrikse) were calling. I was hoping for a Lapland Bunting (lappspurv) which is a shameful omission from my Akershus list but couldn’t find one. Meadow Pipits (heipiplerke) were still conspicuous although numbers have fallen from their peak two weeks ago and there was only a single Tree Pipit (trepiplerke) left and they will soon be gone for the winter. Yellow Wagtails (gulerle) are also getting scarce but there were still three feeding amongst White Wagtails (linerle) today.

Warblers are much scarce but a bit of pishing after I heard a Chiffchaff (gransanger) calling from some bushes produced 5 phylloscopus warblers immediately. It took a bit of time to work out what they all were but I came up with 3 Willow Warblers (løvsanger) and 2 Chiffchaff. These two species are very alike and I think that separating them on a quick view is not always a straightforward proposition. Some individuals require often  to see a suite of characters before making a call and even with pictures it is not entirely straightforward.

Sturcturally the two differ in wing length with Willow Warbler having longer wings presumably to aid it on its long migration that takes it over the Sahara whereas Chiffchaff winters around the Mediterranean and has shorter wings.

Willow Warbler (løvsanger). Here we can see that the primary projection is nearly as long as the tertials, i.e longer than on a Chiffchaff

Willow Warbler. Here we can see a single primary P4 is clearly the longest and makes up the wing tip

Willow Warbler

Willow Warbler - the straw coloured legs and pale ear coverts are also different to Chiffchaff. Note also a slightly stronger looking bill and paler lower mandible

Wrong wind on the track

I read far too much into the weather forecast and despite a cold headed off for Krokstrand this morning hoping that despite the rain there would be loads of seabirds. Well the winds didn’t turn out to be as strong as forecast and veered towards the east meaning that I had the grand total of zero seabirds in 50 minutes of seagazing. It did feel cold though in teh rain and by the end of the morning I was very clear over the fact that autumn has arrived.

I headed therefore to Kurefjorden where I met up with Per Buertange who had a similarly unproductive session from Brentetangen. We were hoping to see the Spotted Crake (myrrikse) that had been so beautifully photographed here on Saturday but were not to be lucky on that score even though a very high tide should have pushed it out of the reeds. Through rained up optics there were still quite a few waders to see on the ever decreasing mudflats. In the end the mud was completely flooded and the waders left probably to Nordre Ovnbukt to roost. Dunlin (myrsnipe) numbered 123, Ringed Plover (sandlo) 27, Knot (polarsnipe) 7, Greenshank (gluttsnipe) 3, Bar-tailed Godwit (lappspove) 3, Curlew (storspove) 2, Redshank (rødstilk) 2, Little Stint (dvergsnipe) 1, Grey Plover (tundralo) 1 and a single Black-tailed Godwit (svarthalespove).

Meadow Pipit (heipiplerke) numbers were down but a couple of Tree Pipits (trepiplerke) and a single Red-throated Pipit (lappiplerke) announced their presence by calling as they flew over.