Checking in on the owls

Yesterday, saw me on a friends and family guiding to the owls in Hedmark. It was very successful if, as always, tiring trip.

Two nesting Great Grey Owls included my back up nest which I visited for the first time and the pair that I have now previously visited which have acted in a very aggressive way without being on the nest. On yesterday’s visit the female again announced her presence by bill snapping when we were 50m away and could not see either her or the nest. She was perched quite high in a tree and continued snapping noisily whilst we watched her. It is quite uncomfortable being there when the bird seems so unhappy/angry so we didn’t hang around but I kept looking over my shoulder as we left just in case she flew at us but instead she flew onto the nesting platform and acted very much as though she was on eggs! But this raises a number of questions:

1.      Why was she not on the nest initially? My experiences with other nesting GGO over the years has always been that the females stay on the nest no matter what.

2.      Why does she continue to be so aggressive in her behaviour? At the other nest we visited the female made no noise and hardly seemed to follow our movements

3.      Why is she so late in egg laying? The eggs (if there actually are some) must surely have been laid since my visit with Jack on 5^th May whereas I know that at the other nest the first egg was laid on 22^nd April which I think is in itself a fairly late date.

the particularly aggressive female GGO in a tree

and then suddenly on the nest platform

and the other GGO nest which is much more luxuriously furnished

A check of the Tengmalm’s nest box resulted in no joy for my trunk scratching but I was able to attach the superzoom to the tripod and lift it up such that I could see through the hole and there were at least two large young in the box. A very thorough search of the area did not reveal any adults or other young that may already have jumped out although mum must have been very close by.

 

We checked just one of the Ural Owls nests. This was the nest where the female flew out when I scratched on 8^th April so with an incubation period of about 4 weeks I was ready for the young to already be large enough that mum was no longer in the box. This meant we need to be very careful as to how we approached the area and we walked a large semi circle around the nest box. The female gave away her presence by bill snapping and when we finally saw her perched about 30m from the box she flew away from the box as though trying to draw us away. Just a couple of steps by us towards the box though brought her right back and then she kept a very close eye on us (although we did not go any closer to the box for both our own safety and also her comfort). One thing that was odd was that she seemed to be panting almost all the time. It was only about +13C so was hardly hot and she wasn’t in direct sunlight but she was pumping her throat with her bill open (but not making any audible noises) for minutes on end. The young did not show themselves in the nest opening so are hopefully not ready to leave for 1-2 weeks.

Ural Owl (slagugle)

 

A stop to listen for Ortolan resulted in no joy and although it may still be a bit too early it would hardly be a surprise if none returned this year. The last confirmed nesting was my record in 2023 and the last two years have only seen a couple of unpaired singing males, one of which is very likely to have been the male from the 2023 nesting. So, it would be no surprise if these birds are now dead and with no recruitment to this population extinction has been unavoidable.

Oslo birding since my last post has continued to be quite uneventful with rain and southerly winds having no noticeable effect. The only highlight was a thirty minute mid afternoon period in Maridalen on the 16^th just after it had stopped raining and when the sun came out. This caused a Falsterbo lite experience with 3 Honey Buzzards, 4 Ospreys, 1 Common Buzzard, 1 Sparrowhawk and 4 Kestrels moving through. Wrynecks seem to be well established though with no a mating paid and two unpaired males and after struggling with Black Woodpecker I now have a nest that is still being excavated and another where two young were being fed at the entrance. At the nest which is still being excavated I saw no splinters being thrown out but could hear one of the adults (I’m quite sure the female) knocking away inside the hole and also on two occasions drumming inside the hole!

this Black Woodpecker nest must be at least 4 weeks ahead of the other one I found

And an interesting encounter with a Beaver that just swam straight down the white water rapids

Sorry David

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my exceptional ability to fail to take exceptionally good videos. I am not talking about my videos being shaky and out of focus as that at least means I took the video, no I’m talking about all the videos I fail to take because of my continued inability to press the record button.

 

Yesterday evening saw yet another monumental f**k up and quite possibly the all-time best video that I never took when I had a Great Grey Owl at about 15m range with a large vole in its bill. The vole was still alive and its feet twitching when the owl delivered the killer bite to the head, ate the head and then swallowed the body all whilst looking at me. The light was good, it was in sharp focus and I was holding the superzoom steady but had I pressed record? I thought I had, I even thought I had checked the red circle was showing in the top right corner of the view finder. But no, of course, I hadn’t and I am still kicking myself.

We are talking about a video (that wasn’t) so incredibly good that David Attenborough would have paid me for the honour of narrating it.

 

This video which was taken immediately after has me expressing my utter contempt for myself whilst the owl looks on….

Great Grey Owl (lappugle) just after it swallowed a big vole but you'll just have to take my word for that as I FAILED to film it

This happening arose as Jack accompanied me on a trip to deepest Hedmark to try to get to the bottom of the GGO situation anno 2026. We checked 4 platforms and 2 old Buzzard nests without finding any incubating GGs. At the platform that I have visited twice before in April the pair were present and the female was very aggressive with bill clicking beginning when we were 50m away and had yet to see her. She also adopted a threat posture and looked like she might fly at us at any moment. Her bill clicking also brought the male in who sat a bit less open but also clicked at us. This aggression from GGO when they do not have young to protect is most unusual (perhaps unprecedented) as is the fact that the pair clearly remains in breeding modus but have not yet laid eggs and it is surely too late now.

the female in threat posture

the male

the males

the pair with the female on the left

The hunting bird we saw was an encouraging sign but the fact it ate the vole rather than flying off with it to feed a mate leaves me not knowing whether or not it was a breeding bird. I do know of an occupied nest but have yet to visit that site as it has been important that I find my own birds but I may have to give up on that hope for this year.

We ruined our finger nails scratching on trunks under every woodpecker hole we saw with only a Great Spotted pecker ever flying out but at a nestbox we did finally find breeding Tengmalm’s although it was Jack who scratched so I still do not know if I have a technique that works.

Other birds seen were a couple of Capers but again females, Black Grouse, Wryneck and Woodcock but it was a cold day with temperatures falling below zero as soon as it got dark and that probably caused less activity than we could have hoped for.

 

we had two roadside sightings of Moose

 

Back in Oslo this morning I was faced with the realisation that springs undoubted highlight - the wader migration at Svellet - is pretty much over. Water levels rose another 20cm yesterday to 4.03m and whilst there is still mud and shallow water there are clearly few remaining areas where there is food in the mud and wader numbers were nearly halved from yesterday and many were just roosting rather than feeding. It is a travesty that such an internationally important staging post for shorebirds cannot be managed better but that pretty much sums up «conservation» in the world’s richest and «best» country.

Svellet 6th May. There is still (dry) mud but water levels have risen a lot

In Maridalen it looks like the 3^rd Lapwing nest has now hatched with there being four young near it and no bird still incubating and yesterday’s brood of three is actually four but I never saw these two broods simultaneously so there remains a very small chance that one single brood of four 1-2 day old young was able to cross a ditch.

a brood of day old Lapwing (vipe)

rarity of the day was this all black corvid on the Lapwing field. I concluded with it being a 2cy Rook (kornkråke) rather than a Carrion Crow (svartkråke) but it ain't always straightforward especially at distance in heat haze. Interestingly the Lapwings which always tried to chase away any intruding Hooded Crows left this bird alone

The big lull

It’s been a long while since my last post and it has been an infuriating time but I’m sure I’ve written something similar many times before at this time of the year. We have entered what a lull with sunny, dry weather meaning no meaningful arrivals of birds and also difficult viewing conditions especially at Årnestangen and Svellet where long distances and hear haze become a real issue.

It is spring though and of course new birds are arriving but it is a trickle and there is no volume of birds. Slavonian Grebes have made their annual visit to Maridalsvannet, a visit that seems to come earlier and earlier each year. Other species that have arrived early are Wryneck, Pied Flycatcher, House Martin and Willow Warbler but raptor migration is still a dream despite me trying from a variety of places – I have yet to see a Hen Harrier let alone a Pallid..

I have just had two good days of guiding with Margie and Greg from Wisconsin where we racked up 85 species with Wryneck, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Ring Ouzel and Rough-legged Buzzard amongst them. Despite us starting the day early it became quite hard going after around noon with the sunny weather causing a real decline in activity. This sunny weather is forecast for at least the next 10 days so I fear that the magical Svellet spring that I was predicting may already be unlikely. The day we do get some rain though could end up being one of those days though.

 

After guiding and drop off at the airport I continued north for an evening in owl land. I twitched a Great White Egret on the way which I actually managed to see from the motorway at 110km/h but did also stop to admire a bit better.

Owls are a mixed picture. Ural Owls are giving me my best ever joy with the species with two nest boxes that I have checked now being occupied - this amounts to nearly 10% of the known Norwegian population!

Great Grey Owl though is a different story. I again visited the two nests from last year and found no birds by the natural nest. By the platform the female was still present but not on eggs. She is a strange one though and gave herself away by bill clicking when I was still close to 50m away and had not yet seen her. She is clearly territorial. 

 

One person who knows a lot more about owls than me reckons it is just still early in the season and that birds will nest and lay eggs whereas another reckons the rodent population has collapsed. Time will tell but unless they lay eggs in the next week or two it will be too late. In the Facebook group Ugler i Norden there are updates from a platform that has a camera watching over it. Here birds were first seen coming to the platform already 22 Feb and mating was observed from 7 April but the first, and so far only?, egg was not laid until 2 months later on 21 April. This to me suggests a pair who want to breed but are finding the food situation very borderline.

When in the forests a roadside female Capercaille was a treat and I continue with my tree scratching whenever I see a suitable hole. This time I did get a bird but and a Stock Dove was very unexpected given where I was but why oh why couldn’t it have been a Tengmalm’s?

Six Slav Grebes (horndykker) on Maridalsvannet - an Oslo record count!

a single bird two days later may well have been in addition to the six

Two Ring Ouzels (ringtrost) - it always feel like a big relief when I see these in the spring as it is a species I never feel guaranteed to see in Oslo (but do)

female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (dvergspett) whilst guiding. This bird was making a lot of noise and was I reckon unpaired and getting desperate

my first Wryneck (vendehals) of the year and another good bird to see whilst guiding

a great looking old Black Woodpecker hole that I was sure would reveal a Tengmalm's Owl (perleugle) but instead and for me very surprisingly revealed a Stock Dove (skogdue). At least my tree scratching skills seem to be OK now.

roadside female Caper (storfugl)

Great White Egret (egretthegre)

Great Grey Owl (lappugle) - the same bird as in my previous owl post

Ural Owl (slagugle) - also the same bird as in my last owl post

but he she is with her mate (on the left). I have rarely encountered the male at a nest site and then they are normally much shyer than this bird seemed to be. He flew in after the female called and maybe felt he had a job to do

and Ural Owl nest #2. This box is old and the bottom starting to fall out perhaps suggesting that whoever put it up no longer checks it and I hope it survives the season

Maridalsvannet on Monday morning. Lovely weather but no many birds

a very long, straight road in Hedmark's deep forests

A pair of Ringed Plover (sandlo) is clinging on at Fornebu and here, and in the video, the male is creating nest scrapes for the females approval. The area they were doing it in was very close to paths and roads so I suspect they will struggle.

I finally managed to read the rings on the Mute Swan (knoppsvane) pair that is visiting Maridalsvannet this spring. Surprisingly they are not the same pair that bred last year which have established themselves at Fornebu now. This pair have  been seen together since March 2025 when they were at Østensjøvannet but did not breed . The female P576 was ringed as an adult in 28km away in March 2017 so is a mature lady. She bred in 2022 with another mate but did not raise young whilst the male was ringed as a juvenile in November 2023 11km away and is so young that he wouldn't have been expected to breed before now

I have also seen Long-eared Owls (hornugle). They were a pair by an old Crow's nest but it did not appear that eggs had been laid yet

Big Owls

So, tell us about those big owls, I hear you say.

 

Owls are an attractive species for guiding and generally the larger they get the more sought after they are. The occurrence of most species of owl in Scandinavia, and especially the exciting ones, though is correlated with the abundance of rodents which goes in cycles. In the bottom year(s) of the rodent cycle there may be no breeding of owls over huge areas and I have heard of people going on organised trips to Finland especially to see owls and not seeing a single one. In the top years though there can be many owls of a number species and a visit in one of these years will have you scratching your head when other people tell you they were in the same area the previous, or next, year and saw nothing or had to work really hard for their one sighting.

After my success with Great Grey Owl last spring I already have people booked to come over for Great Grey Owl this May but have tried to make it clear that there is no guarantee there will be any breeding this year and therefore without a nest to visit it will be very difficult to find any. I have therefore been very anxious as to how it would be this year. My visits to Owl Rd earlier in the spring revealed only a couple of Tengmalm’s and no GG which was in stark contrast to last year however I have heard that it is better further north in Hedmark, or at least in some areas there, and it therefore seems that rodent numbers are varying locally.

I decided to keep on driving north to Hedmark on Wednesday after having dropped Jr off at the airport and had an afternoon and evening to see what I could find. It was still very early in the season (2 weeks prior to my visit last year when I found two occupied GGO nests) and I did not find any GGO on nests however I have it on good authority that less than a week before a number of birds could be heard at night including by the natural nest I found last year so the birds are clearly there and have just hopefully not laid eggs yet – a visit in two weeks time will confirm the situation. I did have GG at one site though and the bird which must have been a female came to greet me by perching above me and snapping her bill. So, this bird which while not yet incubating eggs on the nearby nest platform was acting in an aggressive way which clearly suggests that she is at least getting ready to nest. What is important now is that rodent numbers remain high enough for the owls to believe they can raise at least some young to fledging. If rodent numbers are on their way down then the owls may give up on their nesting attempts even if they have been singing and mating.

I was happy that I did have one GG under my belt though and the went looking for Ural Owl. I visited the area where I last had breeding birds and a scratch of a tree trunk below a nest box resulted in a female flying out! I really did not expect this to happen for two reasons: firstly Ural Owl females are famous for sitting tight and often not leaving the nest even when the nest box is opened up and two I had really begun to believe there must be something wrong with my trunk scratching technique as it failed completely to work last year with Tengmalm’s even when I knew a hole to be in use.

The owl proceeded to land in a nearby tree where it growled at me and called gruffly. I am not sure what the calling was for – maybe to call in the male (who I did not see) or perhaps meant to scare me off. Whatever the reason, I did not stay long and hopefully she quickly returned to the nest. In 4 to 5 weeks if the eggs have hatched then she will perch close to the nest whilst the young may be visible in the nest hole.

So, very exciting times are ahead but only if rodent numbers don’t crash.

 

Here a few pictures and videos where you can see the anti predator responses of the female of both species.

Greay Grey Owl (lappugle)

can you spot the Ural Owl (slagugle)?

My trip to Hedmark wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to Starene where there were still good flood waters and lots of geese including Tundra Bean and White-fronted. I do love this site! And I also had Wood Lark at one of their usual locations.

Starene

 

Woodlark (trelerke)

Some excitement came on the drive home when I saw smoke and blue lights ahead of me and came across a burning car and fire trucks. A check of the map showed that I had not alternative route and just had to sit it out. It was exciting watching the firemen at work and thankfully I was able to find out that nobody had been injured. The car had just started burning whilst I was being driven and the driver stopped and called the fire brigade. Because it was in the middle of nowhere it took a long time before the fire trucks arrived by which time the car was completely ablaze. To illustrate how isolated we were, I was the first car to arrive from my direction which must have been at least 20 minutes after the fire brigade were called and in the 45 minutes I was stuck there only two other cars arrived behind me.