Tromsø in February rocks!

Our first mid winter trip to Tromsø has been a resounding success. We arrived at the end of Sami Week, an annual celebration of all things Sami, and got to see the Norwegian Championships in both lasso throwing and Reindeer racing. The reindeer racing happened on a snow lined downtown street on a 201m course. It was explained that 201m is the internationally defined distance for the sport but no explanation was given for why. A skier holds on to the reins whilst the animal runs and covers the distance in around 17 seconds. It all looked great fun although the animals didn’t exactly look thrilled whilst being harnessed up. Animal welfare was not mentioned once..

The Northern Lights also put on a show and this is one of the main reasons the City has become such a popular winter tourist destination and the streets were heaving with winter clothed tourists from ever corner of the globe. This tourism results in hotel prices going through the roof and rented accommodation being used for Air BnB rather than for locals or students who need it and is causing quite a lot of resentment among many natives.

I put on a «show» for the 100 or so students in Junior’s 8 storey high student block when whilst making food I slightly burnt some mince causing the smoke alarm to go off and the whole building to be evacuated. The fire brigade arrived within 10 minutes and were very good about it - I even think they were grateful to me for being given something to do on an otherwise boring Sunday evening ☺️

But what about the birds I hear you say. Well, they were tip top super. King Eiders and an adult Iceland Gull topped the bill and all seen whilst walking from Junior’s into town. Passerines are of course going to be in short supply in winter this far north but an abundance of rowan berries resulted in small flocks of Waxwing and and most surprisingly a Redwing which would be an exceptional mid winter sight even in Oslo.

The trusted superzoom and mobile phone resulted in the following documentation of the delights of Tromsø (this is done at the airport and I may come with some better edited photos later):

King Eider (praktærfugl) pair

Adult Iceland Gull (grønnlandsmåke)

Fieldfare (gråtrost)

Redwing (rødvingetrost)

I saw no divers in the field but this Yellow-billed was in Tromsø Museum

Where I also had my best ever «views» of a Gyr Falcon
(Jaktfalk)

According to accepted Norwegian birding wisdom Shags (toppskarv) never perch like this…

Purple Sandpiper (fjæreplytt)

Herons have been roosting in the heronry trees by Junior’s flat all winter and they were present and noisy when we were there

A close male Long-tailed Duck (havelle)

Early trip to the mountains

the view from Venabu towards Rondane. There should be lots more snow at this time of the year

At the weekend I joined Per Christian for a trip to his cabin in the mountains of Ringebu, 3 hours drive north of Oslo. This was a repeat of a very enjoyable trip in 2022.

 

On the way up we stopped at Starene which is such a great place and I so wish it was closer to Oslo. There were close to 1000 Pink-footed Geese and amongst them we picked out 3 Tundra Beans. The real highlight though was when a young White-tailed Eagle flew in. It flew slowly over the geese, before almost hovering at about 30m altitude and then diving into the panicking geese. Amazingly it took one in flight and then landed with it just out of sight for us (due to a ridge in the field). For some reason it soon flew up minus the goose so presumably the goose somehow escaped the eagle talons once they were on the deck.

Ebird checklist here.

White-tailed Eagle (havørn) with a Pink-footed Goose (kortnebbgås)

the flooded fields at Starene with Pink-footed Geese above them

 

After this we visited the Taiga Beans at their second Norwegian staging post. This site is rarely visited but is in fact just as traditional as the one closer to Oslo and they also use a far more limited area here with just the same couple of fields used each year. They were mixed in with some Pink-feet and difficult to see but there were ca.80 birds so presumably the whole flock was there and I saw the two with neck collars.

 

After this we went owling. A stop at a Ural Owl nestbox revealed no birds but the thermal imager strongly suggested there was a bird inside. After this we then intended to see lots of Great Grey Owls as we drove forest tracks at dusk. That wasn’t to be the case though and we had precious few other birds which was also to be the case at the cabin. The cabin is at about 950 metres and as expected there was still snow but not very much and there were many bare patches in the mountains. But neither in the mountains or down in the valley could we find many birds over the weekend. No grouse of any kind, and just a few Mistle Thrushes and Chaffinches of migrants. A single Siberian Jay on the feeders at the cabin was of course much appreciated but it was a brief visit and a Golden Eagle was very distant. We also went owling in the area and had definite plans to hear Eagle Owl. The owl was not aware of our plans though but a Tengmalm’s did show well and we had a daytime  Hawk Owl.

On the way back a stop at the Lågendelta in Lillehammer gave a few early migrant waterbirds with 4 Rock Pipits being the highlight.

Ebird checklist here.

the White-tailed Eagle hovering above the geese

and the stooping

it then singled out a bird

this is about a minute later when it flew up prey less

a closer up of the geese as they flew around following the eagle putting them all up

after the geese eventually settled there were quite a few Barnacles (hvitkinngjess) and three Tundra Beans (tundrasædgås) amongst the Pink-feet

same bird

and a second bird with its orange feet allowing it to be easily picked out from the Pink-feet

Taiga Bean Geese in the damp corner of a stubble field where there was rough grassland - a typical habitat

this bird was very distinctive and had me thinking 2cy Greenland White-front for a bit due to all orange bill, slight white around the bill and dark plumage

here it is again. It was a very large bird though so must have been a Taiga Bean but I cannot remember having seen it before

3 Taiga Beans and a Pink-foot

a mixture

Siberian Jay (lavskrike)

Tengmalm's Owl (perleugle)

Hawk Owl

northern lights over Lillehamer

and a much weaker display over the mountains

Tengmalm's Owls and northern lights

Last Wednesday Per Christian and I took one more (final?) trip to Owl Road with the hope of connecting with the two big owls that I had had the week before. This was not to be but it was a good night for Tengmalm’s Owls which were again singing at sites where I had heard them in mid February but not since. This suggests that there was indeed a crash in rodent numbers when the snow melted very quickly but that numbers are now on there way up giving the owls hope that they will be able to breed successfully. At the site where I filmed the hooting Tengmalm’s a couple of weeks previously he was again singing loudly and regularly when we arrived.  What was even better though was that he was visiting and singing from a nest hole and there were two birds. I got some footage I am very happy with and even caught on film how the males song changed when the female called which is described in the Sound Approach as engagement hooting.

We also had some pretty spectacular northern lights.

There are two videos. The first one is my Director's Cut and has long sequences of singing just to give the idea of how constant it was. The second is a shorter version. In both though you hear the regular song then the calls of the female from behind me and then the immediate change of the males hooting to a quicker, quieter and almost continuous series.

male Tengmalms's Owl (perleugle) who was singing from his chosen nest hole