I will just
start this post with apologizing for not keeping it all up to date. I have the
last weeks spent all of my time out in the field, and had no proper access to
phones or internet for most of the time. Some happy news since the last update
is that when ticking off the Lesser white-fronted geese in Valdak we saw a
wigeon that both my friend and myself identified as an American wigeon
(amerikablesand). This is an American vagrant to Europe, and only the second
bird in Norway this year. The distance was very long indeed and the day before,
another very experienced birder had seen it much closer and identified it as a possible
hybrid because of its drab looking appearance and lack of extensive green in
the head. My friend and I both agreed on that we could not see any clear signs
of hybridization of the bird but could not rule out hybrid either because of
the distance. Anyway, as the weeks have passed, more birders have seen and
photographed the bird on a more comfortable distance, and the bird is indeed an
American wigeon. The tricky part with this bird was just that it was in very
early molt compared to the accompanying Eurasian wigeons (brunnakke) and
therefore was very hybrid like in its appearance in the beginning of its stay.
I therefore have chosen to include this bird on to my list.
After the last
update, I did another 10 days guiding photographers in Svalbard. As mentioned in the previous post, I only had
two birds that I was pretty sure to add to my list up here – namely the
Long-tailed skua (fjelljo) and the beautiful Sabine’s gull (sabinemåke). I got
lucky with the skua, but the gull needs to wait a bit.
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| Long-tailed skua (fjelljo) resting on an ice floe in Svalbard. |
After this, I went
straight to the magnificent Varanger area. Varanger is arguably one of the most
interesting birding areas in Europe during summer. Here, the west meets the east and
the Arctic meets the south. The number of rare birds recorded in this area over
the years is just amazing. Kirkenes, the town I flew into is actually situated
as far east as Istanbul in Turkey. Because of its eastern locations, this area
also hides a few breeding species difficult to find anywhere else in Norway. At
least one visit to Varanger is just a must during a Big Year.
17 June
Arriving in the
evening, I did the one hour drive straight to a famous location for Arctic
warbler (lappsanger). This species has its westernmost distribution in this
area and this is one of Norway’s most range restricted breeding birds. It is very rare on migration in Norway, and this species was the very reason I booked my ticket up here already a month ago. The
Norwegian population is probably less than a 100 pairs. As Neiden is visited by
many birders, I didn’t want to do playback to the birds to make them start
singing. I therefore had to wait for almost 3.5 hours before I finally could
tick this one on my list. This species also is a late arrival into Norway,
and this bird was actually the first one known to arrive this year. It was
heard for the first time only a few days before I arrived, so my timing could
not have been better.
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| Arctic warbler (lappsanger) - one of the most range restricted breeding birds in Norway. Its total population is probably less than 100 pairs. |
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| Apart from the song and contact call, Arctic warbler is recognised by its long supercillium (which often goes upwards at the end), and obvious wing bar. |
As the news of a
male Harlequin duck (harlekinand) had been on for almost 10 days, I continued
straight to Sandfjord, close to the famous Hamningberg area. I was stopping here and
there along the way, as the decent number of Rough-legged buzzards, Short-eared
owls and young foxes and Moose along the road made the two hours drive quite
entertaining. The richness of this area is like coming to another country
compared to the rest of Norway. Very exciting indeed! I arrived Sandfjord at about 2 am, and started to search the area immediately. The bird was reported
yesterday, so my hopes were high to add this bird onto my list. This is
actually the third year this extreme rarity is seen in the area. It is probably
the same male that is returning, and it usually stays a couple of weeks until
the ice goes away on the lakes higher up in the mountains. I searched the area and
all its rivers until about 10 am, but could not find the bird. Many
Red-throated pipits (lappiplerke) singing was nice to see, and was of course an
addition to my Big Year list. As was a pair of Red-necked phalaropes
(svømmesnipe). Despite searching again after a few hours sleep and again the
following days by several others and myself it seemed that this time I was a
day too late….
New birds: 3
Total: 265
18 June
After another
search for the harlequin duck, I did the short drive out to the famous abandonned
fishing village of Hamingberg. This remote place is famous not only for its
narrow access road going through a bizarre moonlike landscape, but also for being one
of Norway’s biggest rarity magnets. The treeless landscape makes the birds
normally fairly easy to find. I have never had any great luck here, and so was
it this time as a few more red-throated pipits was the best birds on my visit
as well as two tree-sparrows (pilfink) – the latter a local rarity even though
there are very small population in the nearby towns. A willow warbler
(løvsanger) was optimistically singing from the only bush in the area.
New birds: 0
Total: 265
19 June
As this area has
midnight sun, I like to turn the day around as birds tend to be more active during
night time. They normally have a quiet period between 22 and 02, and then very
active during the early morning. I try to adopt my day (night) rythm to this
as well to get the most out of my short stay here. This day was spent searching
for waders and shore birds along the coast. Stopping wherever it looked
promising and walk along the shore line ensured numbers in the hundreds of birds
like Little stint (dvergsnipe), Ruff (brushane), Bar-tailed godwit (lappspove),
Red-necked phalaropes (svømmesnipe), Dunlin (myrsnipe) and a few Red knot
(polarsnipe), Sanderling (sandløper) and of course the ever present Temminck’s
stint (temmincksnipe). All in beautiful breeding plumage. The little stint was
a big year list addition. Inland there were hunting Rough-legged buzzards and
Long-tailed skuas here and there. I guess it is unecessary to mention that I
had a very good time!
In the evening I
arrived to Komagbukta, a several kilometers long beach where there had been
reported a White-rumped sandpiper (bonapartesnipe) a week earlier. Since then,
it had not been any updates, but I thought the area anyway might be good for
waders so I decided to try my luck. It didn’t take long before I found the
nearctic vagrant amongst the other species. This was only the second time I see
White-rumped sandpiper (bonapartesnipe) in Norway, and I enjoyed it very much despite
the hard north easterly wind picking up.
 |
| Maybe not so easy to see in this picture, but elongated backwards, and pure white underneath, with arrow shaped black markings along the flanks makes this bird relatively easy to pick out amongst the dunlins. In flight, a pure white rump confirm the identification of this White-rumped sandpiper (bonapartesnipe). |
Alarming other birders in the area
that this rarity was still on site, I suddenly got a message that a long
staying Ross’s gull (rosenmåke) that had not been seen in a few weeks was back
in a village only 4 hours drive away. I speeded up….and despite the horrible
weather setting in with blizzard over the mountain and only 50 meters
visibility and strong gale force winds I made it over the mountain safely and
arrived Berlevåg at 23:00 about an hour after the bird had left the roost.
However, as this river outlet was well visited by thousands of kittiwakes, and as most of them left on high tide I decided to stay at least until low tide. The
only problem was that low tide wasn't scheduled to happen before 4 am. I was thinking to go to
sleep for a few hours until low tide at 04am, but as there was constantly
birds arriving back to the roost I changed my mind. I parked my car, with a
good view to the roost and carefully checked every kittiwake coming in from
sea. Five long, but exciting hours later a beautiful 2nd year Ross’s
gull was suddenly sitting at the edge of the flock! I must have missed it
coming into the roost as it was already sitting.
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| Ross's gull (rosenmåke), a dream for every European birder to see. This is a first summerbird, and albeit having its neck ring, it still lacks its pink color underneath. The bird is the one swimming on the right. |
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| In flight, it is quite similar wingmarkings to the young kittiwakes of same age. It can be tricky to find - especially considering there was some 4000 kttiwakes at this roost... |
New birds: 3
Total: 268
20 June
I woke up at
noon, and my plan was to drive back up in the mountains and search for Snowy
owl (snøugle). These areas are amongst the best in Norway for this species, and
I was here also in February (see my February blog). Despite the weather had
eased quite a bit, it was still heavy rain and partly snowing, and visibility was
far from ideal. I searched the rivers and lakes in the area as this is also a
place the harlequin duck had been seen in previous years. I managed to find a
male Gadwall (snadderand) – a local rarity up here, and a flock of bean goose
(sædgås) as well as many long-tailed skuas. However, the only mountain bird I
need for my big year list is snowy owl. Because of the very bad visibility, I
decided to rather go back to the Varangerfjord area in the lowland to search
for birds there.
New birds: 0
Total: 268
21 June
The day and
night spent searching the coast for gulls and waders. Nothing very exciting to
find. Since I still miss Gyr falcon (jaktfalk) on my list I decided to do a
proper search for this fairly rare breeding species. Before long, I was actually watching a pair mating! Incredible
to see Europe’s largest falcons like this. This was an unknown nest site for
me, so a proper find as well and it just shows that with some knowledge about
species ecology and a systematic searching technique one can succeed
with most species. The usual, but still very exciting, selection of Varanger
birds was seen here and there and I did another visit to the harlequin duck place
without any luck before it was time to head towards the forest of Pasvik. The westernmost taiga forest of Europe, and a very exciting place indeed.
New birds: 1
Total: 269
22 June
Arriving into
the Pasvik forest at about 23pm the 21st June, I decided to just keep going
through the night. Birds I was especially interested in was all Taiga forest
specials like Little bunting (dvergspurv), Pine grosbeak (konglebit) and
Siberian tit (lappmeis) which all will be new to my list. I started at
Strand - the place I saw Little bunting for my very first time all the way back
in 1994. I still remember I had to do a 4 km bicycle ride one way to get match
sticks to fire up our “storm kitchen” when camping here. When arriving back to
the camp, after succeeding in getting matchsticks from the local pub, my two
friends had found a lighter in one of the many pockets in the backpack…Anyway –
I digresse. I didn’t get my reunion with the bunting from 1994, but met 3 very
big but friendly moose instead. I continued south upwards the valley, and was
amazed by my friends' and my own effort back in the days when we cyckled this
route with heavy backpacks. It went a bit easier with car, and in the Skrøytnes
area, there was lots of short-eared owls (jordugle) hunting. At least five different territories
over just a few kilometers road. As any owl species, this is one of my favorite
species to see. I had decided to get to the Little bunting hot spots at about
02 am as this time onwards is the peak song time for birds. Just before Vaggetem,
I was stopped by the police. He was curious of my slow driving but quickly
understood what was going on as this was not his first meeting with birders
this year. It turned out he had stopped my friends a few weeks earlier! When out birding like this in the middle of
the night – often at strange places it is not unusual I get stopped by the police.
This is actually the fourth time this year. I usually end up having nice
conversations about birds and wildlife with them, and I am happy they are as vigilant as they are. This time I got the information of the
latest bear sitings as Pasvik is probably the best place in Norway to see
Scandinavian brown bears. Later in the evening I found tracks from a small bear cub,
but did unfortunately not manage to meet the bear himself. However, at Vaggetem
I found a hunting Hawk owl (haukugle).
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| Hawk owl (haukugle) hunting from a power line. |
The most
important bird for this area was Little bunting, and during the next hours I
managed to find 6 localities with singing birds - only two of them which I knew of from before). In total 9 birds. Very good
indeed. Later in the morning I found a pair of feeding Pine grosbeak
(konglebit) as well, but the flew away before I manage to take any pictures.
Because of their silent way of living, this species is actually one of the
hardest one to find of the forest specialties. Having had great success with
the little buntings, I started to search more for Siberian tit (lappmeis). It didn’t
take long before I heard the contact call from a few birds and searching them
up made some very nice views of this forest speciality. Adding a few Bohemian
waxwings (sidensvans), Three-toed woodpecker (tretåspett), a Hazel grouse
(jerpe), some displaying Willow grouse (lirype), a few groups of Siberian jay
(lavskrike), 3 displaying Jack snipe (kvartbekkasin) and a pond with Little
gulls (dvergmåke) and Bisam (Bisam – Pasvik is the only place in Norway it is
possible to see this introduced beaver like rodent) it should be obvious that
my night in these amazing taiga forest was very successful indeed. At 10:00, it
was time to park my car and get some sleep.
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| Singing little bunting (dvergspurv). A very rare breeding bird in Norway. |
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| Chestnut colored cheeks, and a white spot on the ear covert along with its "ticking" like contact call is often how one identify this species outside breeding range. |
New birds: 3
Total: 272
23 June
I started this
night visiting Noatun – famous for housing the cabin of the early explorer named Schaaning who was amongst the earliest “twitcher” in Norway travelling all
around Norway to try to find and collect as many birds as possible to map their
distribution in the 1920s. His work is still today important for understanding
the avifauna of Norway and how it has evolved. At Noatun, Norway’s largest
Little gull colony is also present, and I counted at least 27 adults hunting
insects in the area. At Kjerringneset, close to Noatun, one of the very few
breeding records for Red-flanked bluetails in Norways was done a few years ago.
I spent several hours in the evening searching this area for singing birds
without luck. A few Siberian jays and a
singing Pine grosbeak made the effort worthwhile anyhow. I had to leave the
area already at two o’clock in the morning to make sure I was in time for a 5 o’clock flight to Svalbard where I was due to guide another group of
photographers the coming week. On the way I found lots of more hunting
Short-eared owls, and a new locality with two more singing Little buntings. I
spent quite some time staring out over a couple of marsh areas for brown bears
without any luck. However, on my way north again a Pine maarten (mår) crossed
the road in front of my car. This is actually only the 4th time I
see this hard to see yet fairly common species in the wild.
In the evening I was back in
Longyearbyen ready for some evening birding and counted no less than 12 Grey phalaropes
(polarsvømmesnipe) along the road. This year, about 20 pairs of
this beautiful species are breeding nearby Longyearbyen. A few King eiders (praktærfugl) and Brent geese (ringgås) was still around, but otherwise fairly uneventful.
New birds:
0
Total: 272
24 June
The day spent
mostly in the office, but a short trip out to search for a Pectoral sandpiper
seen a few days ago yielded no other result than the usual species up here as
well as my first Svalbard ptarmigans for the season. This is just a subspecies
of the mainland ptarmigan, but is very different built (much heavier and bigger)
and who knows in the future – maybe my Big Yearl list increases because of a
split?
New birds:
0
Total: 272
-EG-
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