Røst 1

Røst - arrived and already on my third day on this rarity magnet of an island. Through the years, no island in Norway has built such an impressive species list in such a short time. Especially during autumn migration and for eastern vagrants, this island has earned its reputation. And here I am - for the next 11 days.

Røst has not only a lot of gardens, but also a lot of installations for air drying
fish. Røst is very much still a community based on fishery, and especially the
 winter cod fishery. The fish is air dried, and then sold mostly to Italy.
Underneath these installations is a rich vegetation ideal for pipits and other ground
living birds. 

16 Sept,
Arrived late yesterday evening, way after closing time for food store. This ment, early morning in the garden without anything to drink (drinking water here are unsafe to drink unless boiled due to too many sheep and  birds using the same water) or eat. And when you are out in the field, you quickly get absorbed into the birding mode. The hunt for the next rarity - or any rarity. Each garden is like a treassure coffin that just waiting to be unfolded. You never know what you find or when you find it. This also means that you forget to eat, and it would not be until about 19 in the evening that I realised I had forgotten to eat anything.

What I did find on this sunny day was a bright sun that always seemed to be in my eyes. I also found that the gardens were extremely difficult to bird, as there are still a lot of leaves on the bushes and the gardens here at Røst are big and not easy to get a good overview. They also seemed very empty - hardly a bird to be seen anywhere.

After a few hours of birding, I did however get my first expected Big Year list addition as a Barred warbler (hauksanger) flew out from a garden and into a bush further up the road. I never found it back despite searching. Some twenty gardens later I found my second semi rarity for the day, a Wood warbler (bøksanger) was actively feeding in a tree until it got scared away by one of the surprisingly many cars on this rather small island.

New birds: 1
Total: 186

17 Sept
Low clouds  and kind of misty. At midday even some drizzle before everything cleared by about 15:00. The rare treat of no wind. Birded the gardens, and what a change from yesterday! Gardens were filling up with birds as I was working my way from one garden to the next. This was a fall. Before long, a well known call was heard and a pipit flew over head. Unfortunately the almost certain Olive-backed pipit (sibirpiplerke) never landed and disappeared out of sight. It never made it to the list. A call and bird I have extensive experience with both from Norway and abroad, and even though the call is similar to tree-pipit, the calls are rather different. A bit later I did see a tree pipit in a garden on the other side of the island. Very different call indeed, but due to the rarity magnitude of olive-backed, I don't want to include it on to my Big Year list without a proper visual.

It was soon clear that this day was very different from yesterday, as every garden had birds in it. My very expected next Big Year bird soon appeared. The always beautiful Yellow-browed warbler (gulbrynsanger), was seen here and there. In total at least 5 indivuduals werer logged during the day. Despite a lot of birds on the island, nothing very rare was found.

I have already mentioned the dense vegetation in the gardens. This does not only make it hard to spot the birds, but also to photograph them. Despite trying to document both the barred warbler, and some of the yellow-broweds, I never managed to get a clean shot of any of them. Documenting birds on this island is very hard indeed at the moment, and I am looking with some horror until a bird we really need to document turns up - like a skulky Acrocephalus or maybe Norway's first Siberian blue robin.....

One of the many sheep on the island - for the moment not hiding in a bush,
but still helping to conteminate the drinking water on the island. 

New birds: 1
Total: 187

18 Sept
Cloudy, but more wind today from the north east ment more difficult to spot the birds in the moving bushes. It seemed like a lot of birds had left the island as well as only one Yellow-browed warbler was seen. Several small flocks of Ring ouzels (ringtrost) arrived and dropped in. Total of about 15 were logged. A few Garden warblers (hagesanger) and about 15 Chiffchaffs (gransanger). A female Sparrow hawk (spurvehauk) was new on the island since yesterday, and flock of about 120 Brent geese (ringgås) migrated pass as well as two White-billed divers (gulnebblom).

Tomorow, the weather forecast is easterly and south easterly. Cloudy in the morning and then it will start to rain. Almost no wind. This should be text book weather for a big fall out, so I can't wait for next morning's birding. Hopefully something good will come, and I can add a few to my Big Year list.

New birds: 0
Total: 187

-EG-

Big Year birding again

Big Year project is again up and running after a few weeks at sea. As I am not earning any money by doing the Big Year, I need unfortunately to work a little bit now and then to be able to still have a place to live and food to eat in 2015. I love my work, but in a Big Year context, it is also frustrating to be watching polar bears when I know I miss out on good birds at the mainland (I know this sounds spoiled – but you know what I mean). However, now it is time to take back all the lost species. The remaining of September and all of October are devoted to purely birding. A period that traditionally will produce lots of exciting birding, and by end of October I will probably know if my record attempt is successful or not.

News since last time is that I have had time to surf the internet, and actually found that there have been a lot of Ruddy shelducks (rustand) around in Western Europe in May. Both single birds and flocks in both Finland and Sweden, as well as other countries, seems to prove that there really was a real influx of wild birds of this species this year. Because of Ruddy shelducks being so popular in bird collections, single birds turning up here and there are usually considered to be escapes. I have therefore not included this one on my list so far. However, due to the big influx earlier in spring about the same time as the bird I saw at Kvassheim 25 May (during a dip on Woodchat shrike (rødhodevarsler)), it is likely that this bird was part of this influx and a true migrant - and therefore a wild bird. For this reason, I have now included this one onto my list.

A juvenile White-blled diver (gulnebblom) passing our ship in Svalbard. A rare
 bird in Svalbard and even though not new for my list - nice to get a pic of it like this.

11 September

Touching mainland after 4 weeks at sea didn’t mean any time to rest. Landed at 19:30, and already at 5 am the following morning a friend and I were on the road. A Cattle egret (kuhegre) up in the highlands towards the Swedish border had been there for a week, but only known to birders since two days ago. This is only about the 6^th record for Norway, so even though I have seen hundreds of thousands abroad – cattle egret is a very good bird for my Big Year list. Arrived at scene at about 6 am, a bit before sunrise and just as the cattle were released out onto the pastures after being milked. We quickly learned that insects and cattle egret on the other hand, don’t wake up before several hours after. As the first insects started to buzz around, the egret also arrived the scene from its night roost at about 08:30. Big Year bird number 281 safely ticked!

In the evening I went to a good place for waders trying to find Curlew sandpiper (tundrasnipe). A very common bird in autumn migration in Norway, but because I have been out at sea, I still needed it for my list this year. Just as I was interviewed on the radio and talking about how I had missed several good species the last week due to work at sea, a nice flock of 7 Curlew sandpipers flew by me and landed in the bay in front of me. Plan A worked smoothly, and it was nice to tick a bird live on radio!

Taking pictures of the sunrise and the local cattle while waiting for the
Cattle egret to wake up. 

The star attraction for the day - the cattle egret awake and in ready for feeding.

This Cattle egret truly lived up to its name as it was always walking around
the cattle feeding on a fly or two that rested on the cattle itself. In early morning, it
favoured the black cows as I guess the sun heated their fur more and therefore had
 more flies on their back.
 

New birds: 2

Total: 282

12 September

Next day was spent doing some long needed office work. In the evening, I did a short hike in the forest trying to see a bird I am very surprised I have not yet seen this year. Nutcracker (nøttekråke) is a very common bird many of the places I have been birding this year but it was still missing on my list. It was time to change that, and before long, a couple of birds started to call nearby. After this had been ticked off, I have only two birds left that I feel 100% certain that I will see before the end of the year. Common crossbill (grankorsnebb), arguably an even more common bird than the nutcracker, is still missing on my list. The problem is that you need to see them very well to be able to distinguish them from the similar Parrot crossbill (furukorsnebb), which I ticked already in January. I have had several crossbills flying overhead during this year, but none of them safely identified to common (even though probably many of them were). The other one is a regular autumn migrant from Siberia, and I hope to find it already this week – namely the Yellow-browed warbler.

In the evening, I got a message from my friend that he had seen back a Short-toed lark (dverglerke) from last week, and he had also seen a harrier that was seen too briefly to identify it. It has been a few Pallid harriers (steppehauk) around in Norway lately, so with that in mind, and since Smøla is only a few hours away – the decision was easy.

New birds: 1

Total: 283

13 September

Arrived Smøla and the place for the Short-toed lark early morning. Searched all the fields. No lark. A Gyr falcon (jaktfalk) almost hit my head as he was hunting pigeons, and it should soon turn out that he was not the only pigeon hunter out this morning. After a couple of hours searching for the lark, two guys came yelling at me and shouting that I should get the H….off the field. They had payed money to rent the field from the farmer so that they could hunt crows (kråke) and pigeons. I went straight over and explained the situation, and to be honest, I am quite proud of myself for not shout back at them and ask them to piss off as I had all my legal rights on my side and just as much right to walk on the field as they had. In Norway, grain fields that are cut are "free country", and everyone can walk freely on them. Well, I managed to behave (after all, they did have guns…), and we actually agreed on me and some other birders leaving the field so they could hunt for a few hours and then I could come back to search more for the lark later. I anyway needed to search for the harrier, just in case it really was a pallid.

As I was staring into my phone, checking flights to southern Norway due to reports of pallid harrier (steppehauk), rose-coloured starling (rosenstær) and a booted warbler (tartarsanger) that were all tempting. Something made me look up, and the harrier was outside my window hunting in the distance! A small falcon was chasing it, and as I quickly found the shape of the falcon to be a bit funny – something in between Kestrel (tårnfalk) and Merlin (dvergfalk) I didn’t really know which one to follow of the two. The harrier disappeared behind some trees, but the falcon luckily landed in top of a small bush. Difficult light ment only silhouette views, but I got a feeling of a dark facial mask. It flew off again, and as it passed the tree I could see the dense barring in the upper tail. A short flight and it landed again in the bush. I was now confident that I was indeed looking at a Red-footed falcon! The falcon kept at almost 1500 meters distance. I alerted my friend, a local birder that had seen probably the same bird a week ago on the other side of the island. Leaving his pregnant wife and abandoning plans of shopping - It didn’t take long before he entered the scene. In the meantime, the falcon had flown off.  As we were standing, discussing what to do next, the two raptors reappeared, and we both got decent views. My friend managed to take some pictures of both the falcon and the harrier. The harrier turned out to be a juvenile female Hen harrier (myrhauk), and now in better light, it was possible to see all the identification clues on the falcon as well. A very good bird to add on the list! And even though it was probably the same bird that had been seen a week ago, it was a big surprise finding it back.

I had a few hours more of daylight. I decided to head back to the lark field. Now, we were four birders searching together. We flushed a Quail (vaktel), but still no lark. Even though I have heard many singing, this is actually the first time I get a visual of a quail in Norway. As we were searching for the lark, a big surprise in the form of a Turtle dove came flying by and landed in the field. Just after this, another one flew by. Again – a great bird to add to my Big Year list, and lets hope the pigeon hunters don’t mistake it for the wood pigeons (ringdue)…

Juvenile Turtle dove (turteldue) in flight hoping not to get shot by the hunters.

New birds: 2

Total: 285

Now, I am again off to the famous birding island Røst in Northern Norway. A place which has proven good for rare migrants to turn up in autumn. I will spend two weeks at this place, and hopefully add some new birds to my list. It is nothing more exciting than walking around - checking every bird you see in the hope of it being a rare one. Garden birding like this is the highlight during a birding year, and I really look forward to the weeks ahead. It is birding time!

-EG-  

On the seven seas - or just the Barent's sea

I am still out at sea, doing a bird survey. That means birding every day,  but not in a way that necessarily increases my Big Year list very much. However, when you are out there, there is always hope. One seabird I did hope to see during this scientific cruise was the Sooty shearwater (grålire). This year however, has been really poor for them in the waters I am at the moment. Normally on cruises like this, I see a couple of hundreds of them around. But this year, I have only seen two. Luckily, one of them was just when we were almost touching the coast with our ship, and thus within territorial waters so it could be ticked on my Big Year list. Just below the famous North Cape cliff, one was passing our ship and joining a group of fulmars (havhest). This day was a pretty good birding day actually with long tailed skuas (fjelljo), great skuas (storjo), an unidentified phalarope (ubestemt svømmesnipe) feeding at sea as well as no less than 9 Manx shearwaters (havlire) – the highest number I have ever recorded in one day in Norway actually.

Sooty shearwater (grålire) just passing our ship once - but that is all that is
 needed to be included on my Big Year list.

When we are doing bird surveys like this, especially in the autumn, sometimes land birds also land on our ship. Some are regular migrants going about with their normal migration such as snow buntings (snøspurv), redpolls (gråsisik) or wheatears (steinskvett), but now and then something slightly more spectacular happens. Through the years, I had the fortune to be visited by Red-breasted flycatcher (dvergfluesnapper), Citrine wagtail (twice – sitronerle), Rough-legged buzzard (fjellvåk), Wood warbler (bøksanger), grasshopper warbler (gresshoppesanger) and turtle dove (turteldue) just to mention a few. The fun and exciting things about seeing a passerine far out at sea onboard the ship, is the same as on a remote island – you never know what it is before you get a proper look. I am still waiting for the snowy owl (snøugle)....

The other day was such a day. When waking up in the morning, I heard rumours from the crew that there was a sparrow onboard. The crew is competent in many things, but identifying small brown birds is not one of them, so it was with some excitement I started to search all the corners of the ship. Our ship isn’t very big, but I have often been surprised how well the birds manage to hide themselves here. I didn’t find any bird until many hours later, when I again was sitting on the bridge counting seabirds. Suddenly a medium sized bird dropped down from the roof of the bridge and dissapeared towards the stern of the ship. I hurried out, and down on the trawl deck and finally caught up with the bird – to my surprise it was a nice juvenile Red-backed shrike (tornskate). The position of the ship, you can see from the map – it is pretty much in the middle of the ocean. According to Google maps, 272 kilometers north of nearest mainland – the northernmost coast of Norway.

The yellow pin is the position of our ship at the sightign - 272 kilometers north
of Norway! The Red-backed shrike (tornskate)  is supposed to migrate in the
opposite direction of the North Pole - to Southern Africa.

The shrike was not new for my Big Year list, but it was exciting to see. That said – seeing these birds so way off course and so far out from any land is always a mixed pleasure as I know that the birds will die in a day or two. Small birds have a pretty fast metabolism, and they need more or less constant access to food. On our ship – far north in the Barent’s sea there is not much insects to be found. The bird lingered on the ship for the whole day, but wasn’t seen again. I did write a small piece on it for the cruise diary of Institute of Marine Research (IMR), and the NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) picked up the story and also made a small article about it as well as a radio interview. So in a way – the bird has now got eternal life ….

Red-backed shrike - tornskate onboard our research vessel FF Johan Hjort.

Despite a very warm and sunny autumn in Norway, the fall migration is on full swing back home. Soon I am off this ship, and will resume my Big Year exercise – Can’t wait!

New birds: 1

Total: 280  

Lista Bird Observatory

In Norway, we have very few bird observatories. Even fewer that has done long term ringing and observations in a standardized way. Lista bird observatory is the one with the longest tradition, and together with Jomfruland (in the outer Oslo fjord area) – the most important bird observatory in Norway today. The Lista area at the very south tip of Norway, is not only one of the very best places to watch birds in Norway but also a place which attracts a lot migrants. This area is therefore very important to keep track of the bird migration and to monitor the trends of the different species. These trends are very difficult to pick up, unless you do things in a standardized way for a long time. Long time series are therefore crucial for acquiring this sort of knowledge.

The observatory is placed next to Lista lighthouse, where they have been monitoring the bird migration in a standardized way since 1990. As well as ringing and count all the birds, the Lista bird observatory has also made a very informative web site about their activities. I highly recommend to visit it regularly, as here are daily logs put out and also a lot of fun statistics for many of the species that migrate past Lista. To be honest, it is actually one of the more interesting bird web sites I know of, as a lot of information is gathered and put out there in an interesting and informative way.

I also used their website to target in some of the species I needed for my Big Year that I knew would be difficult to see elsewhere in Norway. By using their statistics, you can pinpoint when the migration peaks for the different species are. In that way, if you really want to see certain species, you can increase your chances a lot by using information put out on their web site. I spent most of May at Lista, as this is one of the best places in Norway for birding as well as a very scenic and beautiful place to just be. It is placed on the south tip of Norway, but reachable with bus from Kristiansand from the east or Stavanger from the west. If you drive yourself, it takes about 6 hours from Oslo, 2hrs from Kristiansand and about 2,5 hours from Stavanger (If there is a rarity you will make in 2…).

So if you are a birder living in, or visiting Norway, you should definitely make a trip to Lista. The planning of the trip you will for sure do by visiting their web site which is in both Norwegian and English.

Lista Bird Observatory web

Here are a few pictures from the Lighthouse area.  

Entrance road to the light house and bird observatory area.

View inland from the light house over Gunnarsmyra. Early mornings and
late evenings - this is a very good place to keep an eye on as it has more
than its share of rarities through the years.

The ringing garden in the very right of the picture, and the light house property.
From the top of this hill, it is a very nice view over the ocean and this is where
a lot of the observations are done. On calm days this is also a good spot
for watching the passerine (spurvefugl) migration that will pass just over
your head.

The ringing "office" is the building immediately to the right of the light house.
There is also an information scenter here, where you can get all the latest news. Open
during tourist season and otherwise a few days a week. 

I am still out at sea, and in a little bit of pain as the very first Great black-headed gull (steppemåke) for Norway is in Oslo at the moment. I am stuck at sea until 10 September, but am still hoping for the gull to be real long stayer. At the moment, it seems that early morning and late evenings is the best time to see as it is out in the fjord feeding during day time and only come in to town to roost next to the new fancy Opera house. 

-EG-

Røst Pelagic

30 Jul – 9 Aug

Another ten days of guiding around Svalbard was setting an end to this year’s Arctic season for me. About 50 passengers, mostly from Australia, were taken to some of the best wildlife experiences Svalbard has to offer by myself and my colleagues from Aurora Expedition. A lot of ice around the island made it difficult for many ships to reach their planned destinations, but a very competent crew on our ship and with our experience in Svalbard waters we managed to go to all of our favorite destinations this time as well. The ice did however make it a bit more difficult to get close to many of the bears as the ice floes were just a bit big to push around even for our ship. However, no new birds for my Big Year list but fin whales from zodiacs, 17 polar bears (4 close and two seen during landings) excellent walrus, close up ivory gull (ismåke) in ice and the biggest glacier calving I’ve ever seen were some of the highlights during this trip as well as great passengers.

A large Fin whale (finnhval) surfacing 30 meters from our zodiac in Svalbard.

Ivory gull (ismåke) is one of the most sought after birds in the Arctic.

Ivory gull in blue ice.....can it be any more beautiful?

11 Aug

One of my absolute favorite bird species in Norway is the little known British storm-petrel (havsvale). A bird that is rarely seen in daylight anywhere, but has its peculiar behavior in starting its breeding season in Aug/Sept when it comes to land during dark and enter its nest burrows (often used puffin nests) along the coast. Apart from a very few places in Norway, very few nests have actually been found from this species in Norway, and a lot is still to be discovered about the life of this starling (stær) sized sea bird. I’ve always been fascinated by this species, and the normal way to see it is to do playback on the outer skerries of Norway to lure it in from sea and catch them with a mistnet to ring the birds. However, I’ve heard rumours that Lofoten Birding, a small bird guide company based in the famous Lofoten Island in Northern Norway have tested good spots to see this bird during daylight.

I contacted them, and for once, wanted to combine some photography of a rarely photographed bird in Norway with adding it on to my Big Year list. Lofoten Birding organized the whole trip and off we went with a fishing boat at 13:00. Only about ten white-tailed eagles (havørn), one golden eagle (kongeørn) and 1,5hrs later, we were chumming for petrels outside the famous bird island Røst. Just as we stopped, a Manx’s shearwater (havlire) hurried past and became Big Year bird number 277. The chum had only been in the water for about fifteen minutes before the first British storm-petrel arrived. At first keeping its distance, but as the flock of gulls and the two Arctic skuas eased off a bit, the petrels started to come closer….and closer. We waited for about 3 hours in hope of attracting Leach’s storm petrel (stormsvale) as well, but it didn’t want to show this time. At the end, at least 50 storm-petrels were foraging around our boat. A fantastic experience with one of my favorite birds.

Small hut on one of the islands we passed on our way to the storm-petrel spots.

In the evening, I got the message from one of the other guys- Martin – that he had found a Pectoral sandpiper. This is a semi rare shore bird in Norway, that I have already been looking for some time. My guide and some other birders rushed out to see it but despite searching until sunset, no pectoral sandpiper was found.

Despite searching until sunset, we didn't find back the Pectoral sandpiper (alaskasnipe)
This is a herring gull (gråmåke) taking off.

New: 2

Total: 278    

12 Aug

Up early to try to relocate the Pectoral sandpiper. Some searching and a lot of birds later I finally managed to find it. Well hidden in a grassy pool, and at first – because of very weak breast markings I thought it had to be a juvenile bird. Something that would have been very interesting as there was a displaying pair of pectoral sandpiper seen earlier in the summer in this area. In Svalbard, we have every year 1-3 displaying pairs of this species, but so far only one breeding is confirmed from Europe (Scotland in late 1990s?). Anyway, some closer look at the images shows, that it anyway is an adult bird with worn plumage – especially greater coverts – so the first breeding for Norway still has to wait a bit. It was Big Year bird number 279 for me and a great addition to the list.

A Pectoral sandpiper (alaskasnipe) and a rock (the pec sandpiper on the right).

At midday, we again went out to chum for petrels. It took twenty three minutes until the first storm-petrel turned up. In the end, about the same number as yesterday came in but even greater experience with the birds as they approached on only a few meters. However, photographing these birds is not easy, as the boat moves up and down in the waves and the birds are quite fast. The pictures shown on this blog are anyway some of very few images of this species at sea from Norway. Just before we were about to end the show, a very close Manx’s shearwater (havlire) again flew by. This time, I was ready with my camera and yet another rarely photographed bird in Norway was documented for my Big Year. The only small disappointment was that no Leach’s storm-petrels (stormsvale) were seen today either. But as I will go back to this island in mid September, I still hope to add it to my list later in the season.

British-storm petrel (havsvale) a rarely seen, yet photographed bird in
Norwegian waters.

This white bar on the underwing is amongst the feature to look for to
distinguish it from other storm-petrels.

Manx's shearwater (havlire) - one of very few photograph that exist of this species
from Norwegian waters.

At the moment, I am on a scientific cruise doing some bird surveys in the Barent’s sea. We will be in open sea for most of the next 4 weeks. Not the best place to do a Big Year, but hopefully I won’t miss too much on the mainland even though this is a dangerous time what rarities are concerned.

For excellent storm petrels and other birding in Lofoten. Go to Lofoten birding web site: Lofoten Birding

New: 1

Total: 279

-EG-