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)

Pallid Harrier and more

Everything must happen for a reason. I started early today with the aim of getting to the Elverum area around 6am. On the way, first there were roadworks which delayed me for 10 minutes and I then had to fill up with oil after the warning light came on delaying me further. I was therefore not at the Ortolan Bunting (hortulan) site until closer to 7am. It took a while until I heard one singing distantly (there were possibly two) and I moved closer to where it was. I came very close to the singing bird and pressed the trigger to take what would have been a frame-filler in perfect light. Nothing happened! I pressed again. Nothing happened. The camera was somehow on the delayed timer and was counting down from 10 seconds! By the time I had fixed that the bird had moved further away. I was still able to get some pretty decent pictures but not as good as they could have been.

Ortolan Bunting

 I’m sure this was for a reason though because just as I was turning to leave I noticed a raptor being chased by a crow. It looked small and through the bins at around 400m my first impression was of a Kestrel due to size, jizz and a redness in the plumage. But hang on wasn’t that a white rump and isn’t it actually bigger than the crow? It was a ringtail harrier but what sort? Due to the size and jizz I was sure this was not a Hen Harrier (myrhauk) and as it flew closer to me, but never coming closer than 200m, I decided to concentrate on taking pictures. I had the bird in view for no more than 2 minutes before trees obscured my view and it flew fairly directly but at a low height that made me think that it was in hunting mode rather than migrating. Well the pictures won’t win any prizes, but show it to be a PALLID HARRIER (STEPPEHAUK)! The slight red tone to the underparts ages it as a 2k (1^st summer) and I reckon due to its dainty size it was a male but the pictures are not good enough to see if there is any plumage characters to back that up. So if all the annoying delays had not happened then I would not have seen it. The bird can be identified as either Pallid or Montagu’s (enghauk) rather than Hen Harrier due to it only having 4 long primary fingers (5 in Hen). Identification as Pallid is due to the pale collar and dark boa giving the distinct look plus it also lacks a dark border to the rear edge of the primaries which a Montagu’s should have.

PALLID HARRIER

Pallid Harrier with crow

Thoroughly happy with things so far I now had a choice to drive a further hour into the forests of Hedmark to look for Rustic Bunting (vierspurv) which like Ortolan is down to a handful of pairs in Norway and is species that I have still to see, or to head for the wetlands around Hamar. I chose the later and it would appear to have been a good choice.

First port of call was Starene which I had visited for the first time on 16 April when there was flooding there and many many hundreds of waterfowl. The flooding was gone now and there were very few birds but there is still some standing water and yesterday a Red-necked Phalarope (svømmesnipe) had been seen here. I met a couple of birders who had just found a male Mandarin (mandarinand). OK, it’s probably plastic but they all count for the year list! They had seen a Temminck’s Stint (temmincksnipe) on a small pond and showed me where to go. When I got there I could see a few Greenshank (gluttnsipe) and Wood Sandpipers (grønnstilk) but nothing smaller. Then 2 small waders flew around. One gave the call of a Temminck’s Stint and landed close by and the other made another unfamiliar call but didn’t land and proceeded to fly around with a Greenshank before circling the pool a couple of times giving what I can only assume was a subdued display song. It then landed and lo-and-behold it was a BROAD-BILLED SANDPIPER (fjellmyrløper) – what a great bird and what a great Norwegian name. It fed amongst the grass on the edge of the pool and I was able to call the other 2 birders such that they saw it but it soon took off again with three Greenshank, circled a few times calling but then headed off low to the east.

Broad-billed Sandpiper - I failed to get a decent picture on the deck

Broad-billed Sandpiper in flight - note the distint bill shape

I next set course for Hamar and Åkersvika and it wasn’t even 10.30am! Driving past a ploughed field I thought I saw something familiar - a pair of Dotterel (boltit)!

Yet more Dotterel

At Åkersvika there was quite a bit of mud and this of course attracted waders. In total I had 18 Temminck’s Stints, 12 Dunlin (myrsnipe), 13 Ruff (brushane) with just one male, 7 Ringed Plover (sandlo), 1 Little Ringed Plover (dverglo) plus a few of the more usual suspects. Few ducks, but a pair of Scaup (bergand) were good value.

Deciding to head back towards Oslo I popped in at Snekkervika, Nordre Øyeren, hoping to find some of the summer migrants that I have still to see. I succeeded in hearing one of my targets, a singing Sedge Warbler (sivsanger) but will have to wait to see Rosefinch (rosenfink) and Red-backed Shrike (tornskate).

Whilst watching an agitated Common Whitethroat (tornsanger), I noticed an agitated Whinchat (buskskvett) beside it and then noticed what was annoying them. A head sticking out of the grass – the head of a Corncrake (åkerrikse)!!!!!!! It stood in the same place long enough for me to take some pictures and then popped its headed down, sang once, and was gone. How lucky was I being today??!

Only the second ever Corncrake I have seen (rather than heard)

Can you spot the crake?

Time for a quick trip to Maridalen before having to pick the kids up and a distant raptor with downcurved wings, narrow, long head and long tail was undoubtedly a Honey Buzzard. Also in the air a Kestrel and a Common Buzzard which was missing a number of flight feathers. The Wryneck was peeping out of its hole but no Rosefinches or Shrikes here either.

I ‘ve had a few good days this spring but this might just be the best of them!