A trip to Tromsø

We are still in the north enjoying temperatures that are if anything too hot with 30C reached once so far and forecast again later this week. We have also driven to Tromsø which is a full days drive and spent a couple of days sorting out Jr’s apartment which will be her new home as she will be starting university there soon - exciting and scary times!

Birding wise, and including the trip to Tromsø, it appears to be raptor free here with the odd sighting of White-tailed Eagle being it. This points to a bottom year for rodents but one slightly strange thing is that I have come across a fair few broods of Willow Grouse and then often with 8 young. Usually when there are no rodents then ground nesting birds suffer as predators go after them. Trips to Fauske/Klungsett have revealed that the lack of birds is real. Velvet Scoters are almost absent presumably due to a lack of food having caused the moulting flocks to move elsewhere. A pair of Garganey and a few waders have been the only goodies.

The drive up to Tromsø gave me another new butterfly in the form of Chequered Skipper (gulflekksmyger). The species is not that scarce in southern Norway although is absent from the Oslo area but where I saw it is part of an isolated population in the north. Future trips to Tromsø will give me the chance to look for more northern specialities including Dingy Skipper (dvergperlemorvinge).

Bar-tailed Godwits (lappspove) at Klungsett, Fauske

Male Garganey (knekkand) in eclipse

A pair of Arctic Skuas (tyvjo)

A male Willow Grouse (lirype) giving a broke wing distraction display to try to draw me away from its young that I had stumbled upon

And a female

Prestvannet in Tromsø is an incredible urban birding spot with a number of pairs of Red-throated Divers (smålom).

My first ever Chequered Skipper (gulflekksmyger)

Just south of Narvik is Norway’s «national mountain» Stetind

Broad-billed Sandpipers and friends of the mountain marsh

Time now for the first instalment of my 24 hour birding and butterflying trip to the mountains and forests north of Oslo last week. The spur of the moment trip was spurred by the seemingly easy chance of seeing displaying Broad-billed Sandpipers accompanied by warm, sunny weather. I have seen quite a few BBS on passage and have seen them twice on their breeding grounds including once very closely but I have never seen or heard them displaying and it was almost bucket list desire. They normally breed on quite large and inaccessible bogs but evidence I had been sent to my phone suggested that the birds Per Christian had seen was anything but inaccessible. The location was a marsh at over 1100m and consequently way above the treeline which was not how I have pictured the preferred habitat for this species. The area is known to hold a number of other birds including Red-necked Phalaropes and my plan was to spend the night and experience lots of activity very early in the morning. I arrived in the early evening though and with it never getting truly dark I was able to bird straight away and to be honest hit the jackpot before bedtime.

The BBS did not quite live up to my expectations but I had it in its display flight on a number of occasions including low over my head but I never got to see it properly on the ground. Every time it finished a display flight it would plummet down into the marsh only about 20m from where I stood but then it would just vanish. Only once did I glimpse it on the ground and I think it was living up to its Norwegian name of Mountain Marsh Runner (fjellmyrløper). This video has a bit of its display flight including song.

 

Broad-billed Sandpiper (fjellmyrløper) in display flight

flight shots aren't getting any easier

Red-necked Phalaropes showed a lot better although it took me a long time to see them closely although they then performed very well. Although I think some birds had settled down to nest there was a group of females flying around, calling and seemingly looking for unpaired males.

 

female Red-necked Phalaropes (svømmesnipe)

at sunrise

do you see it?

Lapland Buntings were also present and 4 singing males makes this one of the best localities in southern Norway of a species that is declining fast. A lack of rodents meant that a single Kestrel was the ONLY raptor or owl I saw.

male Lapland Bunting (lappspurv)

male Willow Grouse (lirype) in a place where the white feathers really help it blend in

Wood Sandpiper (grønnstilk)

male Grey-headed (Yellow) Wagtail

even this bird has a hint of a white supercilium

trying to be arty

on a lake on the tree line at 965m a pair of Slavonian Grebes showed well

sunrise 04.01 at 1130m

also 04:01

04:17

The Mountains 2023 - Cuckoo and a lot more

 Here are some more pictures and video from Friday and Saturday. Yesterday we had a fantastic trip to Valdresflye and nearby areas and I will come back to that.

I could hear 3 Cuckoos singing feom the cabin and early on Saturday morning one sang very close much to the annoyance of a Willow Warbler.  This was a truly amazing experience and I was lucky enough to film it although quite shakily.

Cuckoo (gjøk) and Willow Warbler (løvsanger) 

Here the Cuckoo was being mobbed by a Meadow Pipit (heipiplerke) but it looks like it has been speared

2 male Scaup (bergand) and a male Tufted (toppand). Scaup are becoming very scarce breeders in Southern Norway although without a female they will not be adding to the population

This group of a pair and additional male will hopefully be able to do their bit though

Siberian Jay (lavskrike). We had amazing views of a pair but my camera decide to go on strike so this was the only picture I got.
They called a lot though as you can hear in the video

A pair of Ring Ouzels (ringtrost) were by the cabin

Golden Plover (heilo)

Willow Warblers are very numerous

We had very few raptors but did glimpse this male Hen Harrier (myrhauk)

Temminck’s Stint finding food on the edge of the ice

Black-throated Divers (storlom)

Male Bluethroat (blåstrupe)

Ringed Plover (sandlo)

Temminck’s

Dunlin (myrsnipe)

Female Willow Grouse (lirype)

The lake is 937m asl and the ice was only just beginning to melt on Friday when this picture was taken although was mostly gone by Sunday afternoon