Big Year in Svalbard

It has been a while. The reason is that I am doing my annual Arctic visit. Doing a Big Year means spending a lot of money on travelling, flights, car rental, toll roads and let alone petrol. Now I have moved to Svalbard for most of the summer to earn some money. This means two things. I miss out on an unknown amount of rarities that turns up on the mainland Norway. First half of June is usually a very good period for rare birds, so this might be the thing that actually can make me fail the record attempt. On the other hand, I make some money working as a polar bear and photo guide, and I get to see some of the Arctic specialties that are pretty hard to tick off on the mainland. It also means that I am out of internet most of the time, so that my blog only get updated when I spend a few hours ashore every tenth day or so.

On my way to Svalbard, I had an overnight stop to tick off one the rarest breeding birds in Norway. Valdakmyra in Porsanger in the very northernmost part of Norway is the only place where Lesser white-fronted goose (dverggås) is possible to see. So on the 30^th May I went on an overnight trip. On the way there, I had a few hours in Tromsø, where I managed to tick off Temminck’s stint (temmincknipe) and pay the most expensive bus ride of my life so far. NOK45 for a 7 minutes bus ride is pretty steep even for a Norwegian. I also discovered that one of my favoruite birding areas in near the town had been sacrificed to build a longer runway at the airport. A few hours later I was meeting up with Tomas and Ingar, who are doing research and monitoring work on the Lesser white-fronted goose. The weather was incredible, and a beautiful midnight sun, some fried fish on the pan with a bon fire and a stunning view over the Valdakmyra nature reserve where about 50 ruff were lekking, 6 lesser white-fronted geese feeding and displaying Jack snipe (kvartbekkasin - another Big Year bird) on the sky made this to an unforgettable night. Short-eared owl (jordugle) and a Hawk owl (haukugle) were hunting nearby as well. I didn’t even bother to go into the lavo to sleep, but just put my sleeping bag on the ground with some rein deer skin as a sleeping mat (sami style). Very nice indeed.

The next day, I woke up early. However, Willow grouse (lirype) and a local Blue throat (blåstrupe) were up much earlier and had been displaying their colors and song all night long. I then went on my two o’clock flight to Svalbard. The next day, I was meeting new clients for another Svalbard adventure.

New birds: 3

Total: 257

 

Off we went, for the next 9 days we were searching for polar bears and other Arctic inhabitants that was the main objective of the trip for the international group of photographer onboard our vessel. With the current ice conditions, things looked very promising indeed. I do work exclusively for WildPhoto Travel as a photoguide in these areas. WildPhoto organizes trips in Svalbard, Galapagos, and the Antarctic, and the small team of 5, where 3 of us are professional photographers ensures that our clients come home with high quality pictures. In my opinion (and this might sound like bragging), the experience of the local areas and wildlife and our photography skills that the WildPhoto team represents, makes WildPhoto the very best choice available for photography trips in Svalbard. However, on this trip, finding a close up polar bear proved a bit more challenging than ideal. Despite seeing at least 14 bears – none of them came in very close. But we did see them hunting, feeding on a ringed seal in front of amazing glacier cliffs and of course some stunning landscape and birds made this to yet another very satisfying trip indeed. For my Big Year list, I haven’t seen anything unexpected but good birds such as Grey phalarope (polarsvømmenipe), Brünnich’s guillemot and Ivory gull (ismåke) – in my mind the jewel of the Arctic - ensured 3 more birds added on the list. The latter put on a very good show around our small ship, while waiting for 8 polar bears on the ice to approach our ship. 

Every Svalbard expedition needs some Fulmar pictures (havhest) to be complete

I know this is a birding blog at the moment, but guiding people to
great polar bear (isbjörn) experiences is after all very high on the agenda during
my stay here.
 

Ivory gull (ismåke), THE reason for birders to visit Svalbard, and new to my
Big Year list. Big Year bird #260.

Arctic tern (rödnebbterne) showing off.

....and more fulmar (havhest)...one or four?

Mixed flock of king eider (praktärfugl) and common eider (ärfugl) in front
of a typical Svalbard scenery.

 

 

Anyway, I now have only two more birds I am sure to add on my Big Year list up here. But who knows what happens – surprises happens when you least expect them to J

 

New Birds: 3

Total: 260       

Melanistic Montagu's harrier!

10 May
The day started rather slow, and with few birds seen in the morning. I decided to go to a local decidious forest to look for Wood Warbler (bøksanger) - a new Big Year bird. Havnehagen just inside Lista is a beautiful place - a protected pristine forest. Wood warblers were plenty, and I got a bonus of a hunting Tawny Owl (kattugle).

In the afternoon, I was not sure what to do. But a phonecall about some possible Bee Eaters (bietere) made me go out at 17:00. No luck with the Bee Eaters, but on my way to a the store I suddenly saw a slim harrier roadside. Before I even managed to stop the car, my first thought was Montagu's Harrier (enghauk) - a very rare bird in Norway indeed, but Lista usually has one or two each year. To my surprise the bird was all black, and I had to look twice to make sure I wasn't mistaking the bird for a Marsh Harrier (sivhauk). A confusion which is actually not very likely as the Montagu's has a totally different jizz with its slim body and long and narrow wings. Even so, the bird were all black, and it was soon clear that this was a Montagu's Harrier of the rare melanistic form. To my knowledge, the first record of this form in Norway! I quickly got a few shots with my camera just before the bird dissappeared behind some trees. I alarmed the local birders in the area, but despite searching in the evening it was not seen again.

Black (melanistic) morph of Montagu's Harrier (enghauk) - as far as I know,
the first record for Norway of this form. This picture show the upperside, and
note that it doesn't even show a white rump.

Marsh Harrier (sivhauk) just to show the difference in the jizz. A much more
powerful bird with broad wings and short and large tail.

Melanistic Montagu's Harrier from below. Again pictures only from a distance,
but note the jizz - long narrow wings, especially the hand. Only four "fingers"
visible and long narrow tail. The Montagu's has indeed an unmistakeable shape and
elegancy to itself.

A friend and I waited at a big reed marsh (Slevdalsvann), where harriers that visit the area often spend the night. Heavy rain ment less then ideal conditions for raptor watching. Then, just before dark, at about 21:15, a big raptor that I assumed was one of the local Marsh Harriers took to the air. It made a circle and I instantly saw the triangular tail marking - and made the comment " Black Kite!" I more or less threw myself out of the car to confirm the id with my spotting scope. Fog on the lens ment no view at all and before I got to look it again it had disappeared behind the trees. The whole observations took no more than 5 seconds, and I couldn't positively id the bird - even though I was almost certain it was indeed a black kite. My friend, Geir, amazingly managed to shoot a few pictures of the bird, and they confirmed my suspition. But because of the picture quality, we decided to let the bird go unidentified for now and hope we got better views later. Something that didn't happen before the next morning. A Grasshopper Warbler was singing in the rain and made a nice ending to the evening being the third new Big Year bird of the day.

New birds: 3
Total: 223

11 May
The morning started with the message that a Black Kite had been positively identified at the exact same place we had our bird yesterday! A great start, and I was on it to get better views myself so I could include it on my Big Year list. I have a policy, that I will not include any bird which I don't see the identification clues myself - I needed to see this bird again! Searching for it, the melanistic harrier from yesterday showed again in the distance, and before long I received a message from other birders out looking for the rare harrier that both the Kite and the Harrier were sitting on a field nearby. By this time, I had also received a message via Bird Alarm that two White-winged terns (hvitvingesvartterne) had been seen hunting at Orrevannet - a two hours drive north. I quickly got some views of the Kite as it lifted off from the field and it was only seen once more this morning before it probably left the area.

Black Kite (svartglente) at Lista. 

As the terns are usually very brief on their visit before moving on to the next place, time was of an essence and I soon found myself on the road going north. Only 3 hours since the first message on Bird Alarm went out to the public, I was watching these beautiful birds hunting insects over the lake. Not only a Big Year tick, but also a new bird to my Norwegian list! Since we so quickly got the birds, we decided to bird the area a bit and found a female Black-Redstart (svartrødstjert) at Reve, which also was new Big Year bird. This day was nothing short of excellent!

The rest of the day was rather unexciting, and I returned back to my base at Lista in time to do some afternoon birding here. Adding a Moorhen (sivhøne) and Spotted Redshank (sotsnipe) ment that my total now got up to 228.

New birds: 5
Total: 228

12 May
Northwesterly rather strong winds for most of the day stopped most of the migration. A few good birds such as Spotted crake (myrrikse), a few Wrynecks (vendehals), Quail and a rather late Iceland gull kept the hopes up, but was not adding anything to my Big Year list.

In hand - the Wryneck (vendehals) - really lives up to its name. It bends the neck
 in the most unlikely angels. Here it is pictured in a less embarrasing way -
looking more like a normal bird without any super skills.

13 May
Another day with rather bad northwesterly. Pomarine skua (polarjo) migrating and a flock of 7 Dotterels (boltit) was virtually the only birds worth mentioning. We also saw a submarine with German flags - not sure what that means. This became the second day of May without any new Big Year birds.

A Marsh Harrier (sivhauk) in its favoured habitat - reeds.

14 May
Still northwesterly - not ideal at all for bird migration at Lista. A few hours of seabird watching in the morning gave a Great Skua (storjo), which was expected yet new for my Big Year list.  Luckily, the wind eased a bit over the morning, and I decided to take a long walk in the areas I hadn't visited for a few days. You never know, and after all it is indeed mid May and one should always be ready for something unexpected. When conditions are not ideal, it is just about spending time outside. The only place you are guaranteed not to get anything new, is when sitting inside on the sofa feeling sorry for yourself. And so it was - a beautiful male Citrine Wagtail (sitronerle) made its appearance. So brightly coloured in yellow that it can compete with the easter chicken any day. Unfortunately, the bird stayed rather far out on a field, so that it was not possible to take any decent pictures.

In the afternoon, I visited a nesting site for White-backed Woodpecker (hvitryggspett) nearby. Thanks to the local birder Asle for excellent guiding and help with this sometimes very tricky species. We waited only for about ten minutes before the female appeared with a mouthful of fat insect larvae. She almost directly flew into the nest to feed the chicks before she went off for another foraging trip. Another ten minutes and there she was again. In the meantime, a male Lesser-spotted Woodpecker (dvergspett) had started drumming just next to us and Green Woodpecker (grønnspett) flew by just to emphasize the quality of this beautiful forest. Overhead, no less than five Common Buzzards (musvåk) were having an airborne display to draw the territory lines between them. Getting the White-backed Woodpecker on the Big Year list means that I have now seen all woodpecker species in Norway this year - the first group to be completed. A very nice evening indeed.

The globally rare White-backed Woodpecker
(hvitryggspett) will most likely be one of my top 4 Big Year birds when
it comes to small population numbers globally. The species is very
dependent on old forest, something that unfortunately is dissappearing
every day. In Sweden, the species is already virtually extinct, while in Norway,
thanks to steep fjords and mountains, it is still at least locally fairly common.

New Birds: 2
Total: 230

Owl magic

Parts of South Eastern Norway has always been attractive for those of us that has a little bit more than an avarage interest in owls. A friend and myself set off from Trondheim rather late, and after the six hours drive we had arrived at our destination - the owl forest - at 10pm. The two main targets for this trip was two of Norway's both most sought after and rarest breeding birds. Both Great-grey (lappugle) and Ural owl (slagugle) has a breeding population of 10-50 pairs in Norway, and both are difficult to get even when you know where they are. Great-grey because its song is of such a low frequency that it is audible for human ears at no more than about 500m distance. And even though a very few can be seen hunting during daytime, most of them are actually strictly nocturnal. Ural owl is not only rare, but also a very silent owl. It is amongst the owls with the biggest sound repertoire, but at the same time most seldom sing.

Both of these owls are amongst the larger owls, and need lots of old forest in their territory. They are relatively common in our neighbouring countries like Sweden and Finland, but in Norway, they continue to be an extremely rare sight. Why this is isn't completely understood, but the fact that only about 3% of Norway can be classified as wilderness, and that even though we have lots of forest, we have extremely little old healthy forest left certainly must be part of the reason.

One of our main target, the Great-grey owl. So rare, so mythical and so ghost like.
Often just referred to as the shadow of the forest. As the only one we saw, crossed
the road and was visible only for a second or two, I do need to dive into my archive
to find a picture to set the atmosphere. Hopefully, a true great grey big year owl will
show up on the blog later some time.

So here we are, on a small forest road in a remote corner of Norway. The sky is clear and crisp, dotted with million of stars that fight between them to shine brighter than the full moon that is just about to rise. We stop the car next to a forest clearing, and not only ten minutes go by before we both hear something that none of us has ever heard before. A rythmical woof-woof-woof sound. So unmistakable and characteristic - yet totally new to both of us. The first owl magic had happened, as we realised that a great-grey owl actually was singing only a few hundred meters away from us! I've seen the species several times before, but never heard it. A tengmalm's owl was hooting nearby as well - just to add a little to the atmosphere!

We had decided to spend two nights in the forest, but with one of the targets already safely bagged we drove to another area we knew would give us a decent chance for hearing ural owl (slagugle). We arrived at site at midnight, and waited. Then we waited some more, and after that even some more. A distant tengmal's owl was singing, and the full moon was now accompanied by a northern light high on the sky - something very rare to see this far south. It was a special atmosphere staring up in the sky, listening to all the different sounds that the forest reveals during night. Despite standing there for two hours, no ural owls were heard. The forest certainly could hide its secrests well. We decided to search a bit around in the area before returning later in the morning. Another tengmalm's owl, singing close to the road was whistled in by my mimickry, and gave us some brief views before it realised I was no owl. On the other side of a forest clearing, some calls of a mammal started to fill the air. I have been working on a lynx project (radio tracking) earlier, and are well used to the calls of this rare forest cat from some captive animals at my University back in the student times. This one was certainly the right tone for it, but lacked the steady rhytm that lynx usually gives. The call from Red fox is very variable and can sometimes be is very similar. Even though I feel almost certain that what we heard was indeed a lynx, I won't exclude red fox one hundred percent....but it certainly helped the adrenaline rush up a bit! Bits by bits, the nocturnal secrets reveal itself.

Back for another hour at the ural owl site, but without any calls heard. Very silent indeed. The temperature had now dropped to about minus 5, and with a strong flu that had grew on me the last day, it felt rather cold. We decided to try again tomorrow and rather to search for other territories.

A couple of weeks ago, there were reports of more than 30 tengmalm's singing in this area - we only heard 5 for the whole night out in perfect conditions. This mean they have most likely already laid their eggs, and so have started the breeding season early this year.

A picture from the archive a few years back. Not as big as
the great grey, but the tengmalm's owl is certainly worth a piccture
or two as well. This bird was singing next to the road, just as several
of the tengmalm's we had on this trip were doing.

When light slowly faded out the exciting dark hours, the powerful drumming from black woodpecker (svartspett) started to sound like machine guns going off all over the forest. At one place, we had a male three-toed woodpecker (tretåspett), two Great-spotted woodpeckers (flaggspett) and one or two Black woodpeckers calling at the same time. Talk about quality birding! We continued to drive around on the small forest roads in hope of seeing the grey shadow of the forest. It was excitement around every corner, as we never knew what was waiting.

And then - suddenly - at 11:30 in the morning - a grey large owl flew across the road. Great grey! What an amazing bird. Fantastic, though frustrating at the same time as it dissappeared as quickly as we saw it. It flew straight across the road and went into the forest. We searched the area for an hour without any luck of finding it back. We did however find a big stick nest, where it might choose to breed later in the season.

Great-grey habitat. Despite searching for a couple of hours on nearby marshes and in
nearby forest, we never managed to find back the great grey that just was in too
 much of a hurry to truly let us enjoy its whereabouts and ghost like soul. 

Reports of a bewick's swan (dvergsvane) further south, and still no sleep since we left home made us leave the magic forest for a while. Searching through 500 whooper swans saw no signs of the bewick's that only hours before was present. This is the second time in a couple of weeks that I miss this species by a few hours only....maybe this is going to be my bogey bird in my Big Year?

3pm, and we now decided to get some much needed sleep - it had been 32 hours since last time....
Since the weather was so nice, we decided to camp out and just put our sleeping bags out in the forest close to a well known breeding site for Eagle owl (hubro), which was our next target. Three hours later, we both woke up by an eagle owl singing not far away - the best alarm clock one can possibly imagine and another great experience and big year tick!

After enjoying the eagle owl for some time, and since owl song activity usually is at its best just after dark - we decided to head straight back to the ural owl site. Eight o'clock we arrived, and what we waited more than 3 hours in vain for yesterday night, we now only had to wait about 10 minutes before contact calls from a female ural owl started to echo through the forest! Wow! As we enjoyed this for a few minutes, we suddenly heard a call in another direction that made both of us simultanously shout (in a whispering way) Great grey owl! This is way out of any known areas for it, and we decided to investigate this further and went in the direction of the call. While standing there, trying to hear more of what we only heard one time, the male ural owl decided to start singing from up the road. This is one of the most magic bird calls you can ever hear. A hollow, deep hooting - yet musical in a way was echoing from far away. The strong call can easily be heard a few kilometers away, and now, after a total of more than four hours within hearing distance of its territory, we got our reward. The male was singing for no more than 10 minutes tops, before it all went as silent as if there was never an owl around. This proves just how difficult it can be to locate ural owls during night time. After this amazing experience, we decied to leave the area and listen for any singing great greys where we earlier in the day saw one flying over the road. We stopped about 500m away and heard a distant, great grey singing. However, the direction where this birds was sitting might very well mean it was yet another great grey - but it is difficult to say for sure. Rest of the night was spent searching for more forest magic, but apart from a tengmalm's, the forest was very silent. Some sleep, and more searhcing on the forest roads the next morning gave 3 singing Pygmy owls (spurveugle), a hunting Hawk owl (haukugle) a fly by Hazel grouse (jerpe) and then finally another Big Year tick when 8 males and at least 3 females Black grouse (orrfugl) were feeding in top of a roadside tree.

One of three pygmy owls, that entertained us on the many forest roads. 

A total of 1340km on smaller and bigger roads, and we were back home. Despite almost not a single image taken, this certainly rank as one of the most exciting and successful birding trips in my career. We were welcomed home by a blizzard, but who cares - we had witnessed owl magic!

New species: 6
Total: 131


-EG-      

Owling

During a birding year, one comes across many great experiences with wildlife and birds. Some of these, are glued to my mind a bit stronger than others. Within a birding year, there are also many seasons. Different times of year which have different things to offer. One of these seasons, and my personal favourite is the owl season (ugle). The owl season is essentially the month of March. Thats when these fantastic birds start their breeding season, and their song activity is at its peak. Most of the owls only sing after dark, and luckily, daylight hours are fairly short in Norway at this time of year, so we are getting plenty of great owl time!

However, this year has been a bit slow so far in my home area. A steady easterly has ensured to shut down the owls. In my experience, if the trees make any sound - it is too much wind and owls won't sing. The last week, I have been three trips to try for Eagle owl (hubro) nearby, but nothing to be heard except a couple of Tawny owls (kattugle).

The next days though, even though there are forecastet  50 knots wind at home, in southern Norway the forecast seems perfect. Not too cold, a nearly full moon and absolutely no wind. The birds I will be looking for is not only one of my favorites, but also one of the rarest and most difficult breeding birds in Norway to see. I will make sure to keep you posted on how my little owl adventure goes!

This ural owl I photographed in Finland a few years back. It was actively
hunting in the forest edge, but to make it perform like this
in front of the camera we used a bait. 

The last week, has, apart from preparing for the upcoming owl trip been very much a office week. A few short trips to make another tv interview, look at the local gulls (found an iceland gull! (grønlandsmåke) ) and working on the upcoming book some colleagues and myself are working on. Hope to get it out there before migration season seriously kicks in!


-EG-

Water Pipit!

What a week! Started off with the Black-throated thrush vividly explained in the previous post. Then a couple of days in the office and then a few days in the local forest searching for some of the forest special. A lot of wind makes forest birding challenging, but on a Saturday search for Great-grey owls (lappugle) I managed at least to find a very welcome Pygmy owl (spurveugle).

This particular place, I have had pygmy owls since more than 10 years. So, if this is the same male holding the territory all these years, it must be a quite old one by now. Owl season is now starting in Norway, and I do look forward to the next weeks when I will be out searching for these fantastic critters. Eagle owls (hubro) are usually first out, starting to sing their hearts out already in last half of Februrary. By mid March, it should be good activity on tengmalm's (perleugle) and Tawny owls (kattugle) as well. This year seems to be recenably good one for rodents, so it will be a fun year out owling. There are still a lot of Hawk owls (haukugle) about, and the other day I managed to find a pair. Will be interesting to follow this site during the spring, and hopefully they will start breeding soon.

During my owl search, both a Black woodpecker (svartspett) and a European jay (nøtteskrike) flew over the road and by that made their way onto my Big Year list. Most of the smaller roads I was planning to drive in the search of Great-grey owls (very rare, and probably some of the harder one to get this year), were closed during winter (I know, bad planning) and this has to take its share of blame for my lack of success. Despite driving 600km, no owls apart from the pygmy owl on the very first stop for the day were seen.

A presumably very old pygmy owl, responding to my whistling

Later that night, I received a message from a friend about a very interesting picture. It was out there as a rock pipit (skjærpiplerke), but the colours and plumage looked very promising for the extremely rare Water pipit (vannpiplerke). This is a species I have been searching quite a lot for during the years, and I really do have a lot of respect when it comes to id these very similar species that only fairly recently were split into two different species. Even though the pictures looked very promising, I didn't want to celebrate too loudly before I went to have a look at the critter myself. With the extreme variety that rock pipit can show (in the line of herring gulls (gråmåker) I would say), it was an exciting moment when some friends and myself were approaching the place Sunday morning just after light. We quickly found the bird, and what a beauty!

All the classic features, white belly with fine streaking, brown back with even a more paler brown rump and diagnostic head pattern and behaviour. It was indeed a water pipit! And just outside Trondheim on a well known birding site in on the island Tautra. This is the northernmost record in Norway (and probably in the world), and to find this species in this part of the country I consider a mega find! Big congrats to the finder, and thank God for pictures! There have been reports of a few rock pipits all winter at this site, so who knows how long this particular bird has been present.

Water pipit is a species breeding in the mountains of Central- and Southern Europe, and normally migrate only a short distance to lower areas during winter. In Norway, there are only about 30 records of this species, with the first one as recent as 1997. This bird was my 6th in Norway. It is a typical winter bird in Norway, and I have kind of been waiting for the long drive awaiting me when the news of one turning up in Southern Norway on one the more classic sites in Norway (Lista, or Tjøme). But hey, I'm not the one to complain when it turns up only one hour drive away!

Other new birds this day was Crested grebe (toppdykker) and Slavonian grebe (horndykker).

Out of respect for the many birders on its way to see the water pipit, I didn't
try to go close to take a picture close up. But I promise, that the bird is on this
picture, walking in the grass on the far side of the lake, above the white hat on
the person just to the right of the middle in the picture. 

  I arrived back home, and in the neighbour's garden - a second year male Goshawk (hønsehauk) was playing with the local crows (kråker).

Goshawk silhouette in an urban landscape.

New species: 6
Total: 114


-EG-

Searching high and low

I have just returned from my trip up north in hope to see the enigmatic Snowy owl (snøugle). We were searching high and low, day and night. Covering tens of miles with car and snow mobile. I guess we haver searched along 80% of the tracks allowed to drive with snow mobile up in the mountains around the remote village of Båtsfjord, and all open roads that goes through snowy owl habitat. But the white bird was nowhere to be seen. I am not really surprised, as this is not the first time in my life I try to see this bird. I knew it would be extremely difficult, but then again - you never win big if you don't take risks. It seems, that the snowy owl and me, is never going to happen. But what can I do - except continue searching.

Even though the snowy owl eluded me once again, I owe the owner of Arctic Tourist, Ørjan Hansen, a big thank you for a very memorable trip even so. This was a hard core winter trip, with temperatures of minus 20 degrees celsius most days and many hours out in the mountains. Without Ørjans experience and expertise, this trip would have been much more dangerous. Camping in a cabin high up in the mountains, only with a few reindeer as the only neighbours made you realise the remoteness of the palce. Since the snow is white, and the snowy owl is white, we actually found the most effective way to search was during the dark hours of the day using a strong torch. Even though we were dressed in so many layers of clothes that it was difficult to move, we found several foxes, wolverine (jerv) tracks and lots of Ptarmigans (fjellrype) and a few Willow grouse (lirype) in the lower grounds. Both new species for the Big Year list.

One of several Ptarmigans (fjellrype) found during our nocturnal search. This female is not
 easy to distinguish from the very similar willow grouse, but very small bill is the key,
as well as the shape of the forehead and bill. 

I must admit, it was quite an exotic experience to drive in pitch dark, in the harsh
mountains, only with the light of my torch and the snow mobile to guide our
way along the white fields. And of course, the sky was filled with dancing
Aurora borealis to keep us warm in the freezing cold. Very spectacular indeed!
You might think that one of the reasons we didnt find the snowy owl was because,
we held the torch straight up in the air.....I can assure you that this pose was for the
picture only, and that the light usually was hold in a more horisontal position.

This is a picture I took in the same area last year. Just to give you an idea
of how the roads and nature of this hostile mountains can be like. Yes - the
shadows you see in the white are cars, presumably driving on a road....

Even though we didn't manage to find the snowy owl, I am not surprised if this will be one of the trips I will most strongly remember by the end of the year. First time driving snow mobile, and spectacular nature and light and mountains. Norway is a fine place to live indeed!

And then the long flight back home....only interupted by the news of a
 Black-throated thrush (svartstrupetrost) in western Norway, in the town
Bergen. When one adventure ends - another begins.

I have already booked my tickets to try for the Black-throated thrush in Bergen. Two long trips so far in the Big Year, and both have ended with a dip. Will this third try for this huge rarity change my luck? Keep follow this blog to see what happens and if I succeed or not.

New species: 2

Total: 105

-EG-

Big Year project in media

Part of my purpose with my Big Year project is to increase interest for birds and birding in Norway. Saturday, my project reached the national news. A nice article featuring some of my images and my project was at the front page of the largest broadcasting company in Norway - NRK.

The article is still (while writing this) on the front page, and can be viewed here: Big Year in NRK

If you don't understand Norwegian, you can always look at the pictures - Enjoy!


-EG-