American Wigeon Lofoten July 2017

I still have a load of photos and experiences from last year's summer holiday that I should blog about but can begin here with an account of a female American Wigeon. I was just twitching the bird and the impressive work behind finding it and identifying it belongs to far more accomplished birders than myself ;-)

Females are notoriously difficult to separate from European Wigeons and even well observed birds may not be possible to ID 100% let alone be approved by a rarities committee but this bird seems to fit the bill.

a snapshot from the video showing the persil white underwing axillaries. This is one of the main ways to separate from European Wigeon which are grey. That said though I have seen a number of photos of European Wigeon where the coverts look white although sunlight and slight over exposure may play role.

The long drive north

After a week in Beitostølen tradition has it that we visit the north of Norway and bring the good weather with us. This year I chose to drive the 1300km to Bodø and do a bit of birding on the way. The driving on Norway’s winding, narrow main road, the E6, is slow progress and one rarely has the chance to think that 80km/h is a ridiculously slow speed limit. Including birding stops one needs two days to make the journey but it does go quite quickly especially with a good book to listen to and a view out of the windscreen that gets progressively more exciting the further north one comes.

My first stop on the journey was at Hamar where I year ticked an American Wigeon. This must be a very exciting bird to find but as a twitch it was very uninspiring as it fed distantly in long grass with a handful of its European cousins. Continuing north in heavy rain I stopped in the car park of Fokstumyra nature reserve but chose not to get out of the car and drove instead further north where  I visited Orklesjøen for the first time. The long drive into the area through very barren mountain landscape was very promising but the lake itself did not live up to any of the expectations I had and it ended up being a rather frustrating waste of two hours that I could have used elsewhere.

After this I just kept driving and finally stopped to sleep just after midnight somewhere in Nordland County. At 9am the next morning I finally made it to the area that I had been looking forward to for the last 24 hours: Saltfjellet. This is a great tundra area right on the Arctic Circle and one I have visited a few times over the past two decades and seen lekking Ruff, Short-eared Owls, Red-necked Phalaropes, Rock Ptarmigan, Long-tailed Ducks and always had the thought that there should be something rarer to find. With this year being a good owl year in Northern Norway I had a hope that maybe I could find a Snowy Owl here (a google search showed that the Norwegian owl researchers had also though the same as they had requested permission to use helicopters in the National Park SHOULD there be breeding Snowy Owls there this year).

The sight of a number of Long-tailed Skuas (fjelljo) was very encouraging, in fact more than that very exciting! This is a species that I saw regularly on our first visits to Valdresflya around 10 years ago but which has not been present (for me at least) for the last five at least and which otherwise I have only seen in adult summer plumage in Finnmark. As a lemming specialist the present of at least 7 birds in a small area was a very encouraging sign but the strange thing was there were no Short-eared Owls, only a couple of Rough-legged Buzzards and I didn’t actually see a lemming (although did heard one in the undergrowth). So it was perhaps not surprising that I didn’t find a Snowy Owl.

The skuas were hunting by flying around and frequently hovering and would often call which would suddenly draw my attention to new birds. I had one bird that mobbed a Rough-legged Buzzard and this bird was then mobbed by an Arctic Tern which surprisingly are to be found high up on the tundra. My best encounter with the skuas came when I had seen a bird hunting a few hundred metres away which looked to land out of my sightline. I walked up towards it and then suddenly saw it perched not too far away and not too concerned by my presence. It allowed fairly close approach before flying off calling where it was joined by another bird. Both birds landed in a difficult to observe position but were clearly engaged in some courtship and I believe the other bird had brought in some food which was confirmed as one of the birds afterwards had a bit of pink meat stuck to its bill. I made my way closer to the birds and suddenly I realised I had come too close as I got the same treatment that had been meated out to the Rough-legged Buzzard before. I saw no sign of a nest or young but this pair was clearly very territorial and were maybe about to begin breeding.

Waders were not very numerous and I did not see a single Golden Plover which struck me as a bit alarming. I did have a couple of female Red-necked Phalaropes who were probably finished with their breeding duties and will soon be heading south again. I have previously had lekking Ruff up here and records suggest that there is still a small breeding population up here but it was probably too late in the year for me to see this species so my hopes of seeing lekking this year are well and truly over. Other waders I had were a flyover Dotterel, Whimbrel, Wood Sandpiper and Common Sandpiper.

There are surprising numbers of passerines high up on the tundra here with Willow Warblers, Yellow Wagtails, Redwings and Fieldfares feeling very out of place. More expected were good numbers of Lapland Buntings and Bluethroats. I had heard a single Bluethroat singing and played its song hoping to see it. What really surprised me was that at least 7 males appeared out of a small area of dwarf willow. They were obviously interested in the song but only a couple sang back and most seemed most interested in feeding. There was not a single female amongst them and I cannot believe that there could have been 7 pairs breeding in such a small area so I’m not quite sure what all these males were doing and what it means in terms of breeding success.

After Saltfjellet the next quality birding comes from the fjord at Fauske. This area can offer good numbers of waders and sea ducks, grebes and divers. It is a bit early for large numbers but I did have a male King Eider plus small numbers of Velvet Scoters, Common Scoters and Slavonian Grebes.

I had time for one more location before picking up the female contingent who were flying up and visited Seinesodden. I have been here once before and really liked it without having seen very much. A week ago though a Black-winged Pratincole was found here and the next day a female Steller’s Eider plus there being breeding Red-necked Phalaropes so it was well worth a visit. Of the three afore-mentioned species I only saw a single phalarope but the locality is great and I also met another birder which in itself is a rare occurrence in these parts. There were very good numbers of Redshanks here which were clearly breeding and I cannot remember ever having some across so many in such a small area. I encountered very few up on Saltfjellet and it can well be that the late snow melting has caused birds to nest lower down this year.

The drive up might be long (it takes me a couple of days to recover) but the changing scenery and occasional great birding on the way makes it worthwhile and I have the return trip to look forward to.

Long-tailed Skua (fjellfjo)

a poor picture of the two in some sort of courtship feeding

here with some meat stuck to the bill after the courtship feeding

 

"get orf my land"

hovering very much like a Kestrel whilst searching for food

mobbing a Rough-legged Buzzard

many pictures ended up with only a bit of the bird  in shot

 

an incredibly long tail

another failed shot which was a shame as it was sharp! Note the black feet

 

 

Bluethroat (blåstrupe)

this one was too close

they have toungues

male King Eider (praktærfugl)

together with a young male Common Eider in Black Guillemot plumage

female Lapland Bunting (lappspurv)

note the typical lower mandible of a bunting. There seems to be a lot of crap stuck to the bill of this bird

one of the Red-necked Phalaropes (svømmesnipe) on Saltfjellet

the (Common) Redpolls on Saltfjellet are for me a good case study in the fact that redpolls are just a clinal species that gets paler the further north one comes

Puffins (lundefugl) near Bodø. To see adult birds here at this time of the year is bad news as it means they have left their breeding colonies (most likely Røst) in search of food. Apparantly it is 14 years since the colony on Røst had fledged young

this picture of a Common Sandpiper (strandsnipe) was probably the highlight of a two hour detour to Orkelsjøen

 

Arctic Tern (rødnebbterne) at Orkelsjøen

 

and a Temminck's Stint

record shot of the American Wigeon (amerikablessand)

Rubbish

The choice today was between two rubbish dumps. Either Øra where there is an American Wigeon (amerikablesand) or Taranrød, near Tønsberg where there is a Black Kite (svartglente) both of which would be new Norwegian birds for me. I chose Øra because the chance of finding something else would be much higher here especially as it is at the mouth of the Glomma River which runs through Nordre Øyeren and would therefore be a likely place for the rare terns to have moved to.

On the way down a Peregrine (vandrefalk) flew over the road. When I got to Øra it was overcast and slightly chilly which had caused hundreds of Swifts (tårnseiler) and hirundines to hunt insects low over the water and it is in these conditions that marsh terns can often turn up – well on other days at least! The American Wigeon was on show with ten normal Wigeon (brunnakke) when I arrived but as usual at Øra was quite some way off. Here is the only picture I managed which could possibly come under the category atrocious documentation photo.

American Wigeon - believe it or not

39 Teal (krikkand) did not hide anything rarer in their midst and there were no waders of any interest. Three singing Marsh Warblers (myrsanger) made quite a noise around the bird hide and a male and a female Marsh Harrier (sivhauk) floated over the reedbed.

Driving to Kurefjorden I had a female Marsh Harrier hunting by the road and a singing Marsh Warbler singing from a roadside marsh. It was high tide at Kurefjorden which concentrated the birds but there was (as expected) little to see. A male Gadwall (snadderand), 13 Ringed Plover (sandlo), a Wood Sandpiper (grønnstilk), a Greenshank (gluttsnipe) and a singing Marsh Warbler were the pick of the bunch. This time of the year really is one of the quietest times for birds but it is also when some exceptional rarities can turn up so there is always a motivation to keep looking!

Last night I embarked on another nocturnal wander this time around Ski. My main target was Quail (vaktel) but I failed to hear any in an area that had held five only two night previously... I did hear a probable Blyth’s Reed Warbler (busksanger) at 10pm but it only sang very briefly on two occasions and not long enough for me to nail it. Having already had two this spring I left after half an hour of waiting in vain for it to sing again. I did hear two Marsh Warblers singing in duet only 15metres from each other and had a Short-eared Owl (jordugle) float over my head which was a surprise as I would far more have expected Long-eared Owl (hornugle) at this location and time of year.

Driving past Østensjøvannet in Ås I heard the River Warbler that has been present from a couple of weeks from the moving car and coming back to Oslo just aftret midnight I heard one of the two Blyth’s Reed Warblers that were discovered on Sunday at Frognerkilen (by Bygdøy). My final destination was Maridalen where I felt confident I would get a rare warbler for my troubles. On entering Maridalen there was indeed a Marsh Warbler singing (finally) but nothing else new. The Grasshopper Warbler is still reeling away but the Corncrake and River Warbler were both quiet or absent.