Birding From South To North
A young bull moose feeding at Pasvik. If you look closely at its side you will see a scratch mark. We were told that this was done by a Brown Bear.
It has been a while since I last had time to update my blog. Since last time I have been to Sweden, England and the far north of Norway so there hasn't been much time for any writing.. Birding the far north is always exciting, though this time ice cold strong winds, snow showers every day and lashing rain put a damper on things and made birding difficult to say the least. However the people that I was guiding still enjoyed the trip and that is the main thing. After our arrival at Kirkenes we were soon driving along the Varangerfjord where we saw our first Steller’s Eiders, a stunning little duck. A stop at Nesseby produced the trips first Red-necked Phalaropes as well as some of the commoner waders. We stayed 2 nights at Vardø. This gave us the chance to visit Hornøy to see the Brunnich’s Guillimots and the thousands of other breeding seabirds. We also drove to Hammingberg watching Red-throated Pipits on the way. From the Varanger peninsula we drove to Pasvik. This is a truly great area with huge expanses of taiga forest with such species as Pine Grossbeak. All in all we saw nearly 100 species which was good considering the very bad weather. Birding locally around Voss has also been interesting so far this summer with a scattering of semi rare species for the county. June produced a Common Rosefinch and a few Marsh Warbler. The long staying Common Crane was still present at Ulvikpollen before I left for England while the highlights so far in July have been Corncrakes and a 2cy Glaucous Gull. I have just returned from guiding a group of birders at Jæren, south of Stavanger. It was a little early for wader migration but we did see Temminck’s Stint which was a new species for most of them. Westerly winds produced a scattering of Manx Shearwaters. Jæren is a great place for birding and I would highly recommend a visit if you are ever in Norway. I stayed at the Jæren Hotel at Bryne. Situated in the centre of Jæren it is a great hotel with great service and the best steak in Norway.