This Phalarope and its mate were found in a small pool near Staloluokta June 14. The evening before we saw at least 40 at long distance congregating in the middle of lake Virihaure. A week later we found the male in the same pool and after a bit of searching also a nest with four eggs. A couple of days later the nest was empty but for some shell fragments. Probably Red Fox, Hooded Crow or Long-tailed Skua had found the nest. Since the population of Norway Lemming crashed earlier in the spring these species relied heavily on egg stealing for survival.
C ringing a Crow (Corvus corone cornix), Staloluokta 2008-06-15
Perhaps posting the stuff from my summer trip as soon as I get it ready is the way to go. Here's a couple of new items.
A singing Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) outside Jokkmokk. Filmed with digital compact camera through handheld binocular.
Singing Ring Ouzel (Turdus torquatus) near Staloluokta, Padjelanta
Staloluokta is the name of the Sami village where we had our base camp. The Ring Ouzels could be heard singing high up on the mountainside from there. The clip shown here was shot during our first day of surveying the birch forest.
Finally home again (arrived on the 2nd). Had no time to update in between trips, so here's a little something about the trip to Skåne (Scania). It will be mostly pictures I think...
Day 1 (June 6)
The first field day of the trip resulted in five life ticks (White Stork, Woodlark, Kingfisher, Golden Eagle and Corn Bunting) and additional year ticks (Black Tern, Honey Buzzard).
Woodlark (Lullula arborea)
Red Kite (Milvus milvus)
Corn Bunting (Miliaria calandra)
The fairly odd assembly of lifers is in my opinion a quite good indication on how large the biotope diversity in Skåne is.
Day 2 (June 7)
We had no Golden Orioles the first day, which was well made up for day two with perhaps as many as seven singing at the same time and at least three flying over. No lifers this day but year ticks of Barred Warbler, Wryneck and Firecrest. Also life-second ticks of the afforementioned plus Tawny Pipit and Serin.
Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio)
Common Lizard (Zootoca vivipara)
Serin (Serinus serinus) Singing male
Black redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) male
Black redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) female
The above Black Redstarts were found among some high buildings near the harbour in Åhus, where we went on an evening stroll from our hostel. The following morning I also found two juveniles in a nook on one of the buildings.
Day 3 (June 8)
Last day of the trip. No year ticks but life tick of Hobby. On our way home we stopped at a spot for a very long time to look for Red-breasted Flycatcher without success, which resulted in a tired busdriver declining to stop by Galtabäck for a Little Egret.
White Stork (Ciconia ciconia)
Blue-headed Wagtail (Motacilla flava flava)
Four-spotted Chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata)
Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)
Soon there will be a post about the trip to Padjelanta. I got six lifers up there :)
As I've mentioned before, I spent May 22-25 on Öland taking part in a course about how to recruit and work with volunteers for the purpose of promoting bird conservation and getting more members for the Swedish Ornithological Society. With me were society members from all over the country and also two gentlemen from the RSPB. Of course there was also plenty of time for birdwatching.
I started out early, spending four hours on the train to Kalmar and then another two hours in Kalmar waiting for people arriving with the next train before going onward to Öland and the birds :) If we had gotten there earlier and hitched a ride down to the observatory I could have life ticked a Nightjar, sleeping in a tree in the lighthouse garden.
A walk in the woods south of the hostel generated only one year tick, but one quite hard to find at home, Collared Flycatcher. By the coast east of the forest we also got Sanderling. Supposedly there were Broad-billed Sandpipers there as well, but we couldn't distinguish them properly from the Dunlins.
Fallow Deer (Dama dama) Feral herd, introduced in the 16th century.
Back at the hostel I got another year tick, and well deserved it was. My first Bluethroat since 1997!
Bluethroat (Luscinia svecia)
The next morning almost all of the participants were set on Golden Oriole. After a while I decided to go down to the observatory area to meet up with an old birding friend. Twenty minutes of brisk walk later I found two men with parabolic microphones who pointed and whispered 'Oriole'. I walked on more cautiously and managed to hear the distinct song a bit down the road. First life tick of the trip! (As mentioned elsewhere in the blog, according to swedish rules, identifying a bird by the sounds it makes also counts as a tick, even for example the sound of a fleeing Capercaillie). My sound recording below actually has the song of two Golden Orioles, but they are perching rather close to each other.
Golden Oriole (Oriolus oriolus)
Further south I year ticked Red-breasted Flycatcher and Brent Goose and down by the observatory Red-necked Phalarope. During lunch break I also year ticked Common Rosefinch and Little Stint. Later in the evening I year ticked Marsh Warbler near the hostel. Reasonable catch for a single day nowadays.
Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata) They were all over the place! Swarms!
Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)
The third day started very early with going to the observatory and lighthouse area in search for the Kentish Plover resident since late April, but instead of heat shimmer being the problem like the day before, this time he was seen further north east and only at a great distance, but when we arrived to the tower by the reported spot he had just flown away again. Year ticks that morning: Grey Plover and Red Knot and also ssp. tick of Light-bellied Brent Goose. After an outdoors assignment during the morning I also life ticked Grey Partridge on the way back south and later in the afternoon life ticked a newly ringed Serin in the observatory garden.
Serin (Serinus serinus)
Little Tern (Sternula albifrons)
The last morning of the trip we also went down to the southern point of the island (after dipping a River Warbler near the hostel), except those who still hadn't seen or heard Golden Oriole. This resulted in the fourth life tick of the trip, Black Kite. It was spotted going southwest at good height but reconsidered and started working it's way against the wind to the northeast and therefore could be seen very nicely from where I stood for almost two minutes. No course activities this day, so the focus was on birdwatching until lunch. Managed to year tick Caspian Tern, but not a very good observation. Spent an hour or so photographing the resident Jackdaws. At the time of departure a Black-winged Stilt was reported further north along the eastern coast, but we didn't have time to go look for it.
Jackdaw (Corvus monedula)
A good trip and very interesting course, but there were quite a few irritating dips such as Red-footed Falcon, Great Reed Warbler, Common Guillemot, Spotted Crake, Turtle Dove and probably a few more.
The Little Egret at Båtafjorden had apparently moved on or found a good hiding place before we got there, so we didn't see it. Year ticked Corn Crake though and had for example Shoveler, Garganey, Ruff, Spotted Redshank, Marsh Harrier and Sedge Warbler, so the time there was well spent at least.
Edit: right now, 21:43, the damn bird was reported some distance west of where we were. Silly :(
This time we focused on the Getterön area, starting at the westernmost point, known as 'Gubbanäsan' (en: old man's nose). Not optimal weather for sea migration watching (way too nice) but not entirely empty. Year ticked Grasshopper Warbler on the way out and Razorbill while there.
Grasshopper Warbler (Locustella naevia) Digiscoped with DSLR.
After Gubbanäsan we worked our way back towards the Getterön center, stopping here and there. Year ticked Icterine Warbĺer at Bengtssons häck (en: Bengtsson's hedge), basically a broadleaf grove surrounded by low pines and junipers, renown for attracting rare passerines such as Yellow-browed Warbler and Firecrest. We also saw a calling Cuckoo flying past - a rather rare event. I photographed it, but the pictures didn't turn out very good; the bird in the picture could just as well be a Kestrel or similar.
Sandwich Tern (Sterna sandvicensis)
At the west end of the main Getterön area we found a Black-tailed Godwit, which was my fourth year tick for the day. There were also quite a lot of warblers and some Lapwings with chicks.
In just a week, the number of geese had gotten notably lower, since most of the Barnacle Geese had moved on. More waders had arrived though, along with for example Housemartins and Thrush Nightingales. An Egyptian Goose had been reported from there the day before but seemed to have moved to a lake in the next county. Year ticked Dunlin.
Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata)
On the way home we spent some time in the tower by Tjolöholm castle. Not very much interesting apart from a trio of Bar-tailed Godwits (year tick six) and an increase in raptors (Common Buzzard, Marsh Harrier, Osprey).
No life ticks this time, but I'm quite satisfied with six year ticks, which brings the total up to 178. This year's list will most probably be a new record since last year's was 210.
Saturday, May 3rd. We left at 4 in the morning and went all the way to Mellbystrand in southern Halland. Arrived a bit past six. The people already there told us we were a bit late and that migration activity had already peaked. A bit discouraged...
Not before long, however, someone called out Red-throated Divers. Accustomed to Hönö conditions, I began scanning the horizon. But the divers came in hundreds, several hundred feet above us in a large cloud. After a while a White-billed Diver/ Yellow-billed Loon was spotted among them, being obviously larger and with proportionally larger feet. First life-tick of the day. A little while later a passerine flew by heading north. At first I thought it was just a wagtail, but with help of the more seasoned twitchers we could identify it as a Tawny Pipit. Life tick two was a fact.
Some time passed, a good number of year ticks ticked in (hur hur). Then reports of Pomarine Skua heading south began to come in (by BMS, Bird Message Service, a mobile phone service thingy administered by Club 300). After a while it was apparent the skua would eventually get to our location. An exciting half hour later it was spotted, firmly heading south at reasonable range. Very nice third life tick of the day!
Reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus)
After Mellbystrand we went to Trönninge ängar, a classic spot for nesting Penduline Tit, but we didn't find any. Lots of ducks and geese though and some more year ticks.
Spotted Redshank (Tringa erythropus)
The most unusual year tick there was a very early lone Swift. The climate changes becomes apparent if one turns to phenology records...
Swift (Apus apus)
We missed some good stuff such as Short-toed Lark somewhere along the way, but at least the year ticks and nice observations kept coming in.
Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo)
We also stopped by Getterön to have a well earned muffin and more than 1500 Barnacle Geese. Just as last year (see May 19 2007 I think) we had a posing Sedge Warbler and the Barn Swallows nesting in the hide.
Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus)
Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)
After a last stop at Båtafjorden we could count to a total of around 95 species seen in a day. Had we felt more twitchy or started out earlier (fat chance) the tally could have been higher, but still a damn good result in my opinion. And some rather nice pictures too.
Bus trip to Lake Hornborga, a veritable drive-in restaurant for Common Cranes heading for the rest of Scandinavia. At this time of year, however, only a few thousand are still there.
Common Crane (Grus grus)
Embarked at 05:30 in the morning. Unholy!
The first life tick for the trip was White-fronted Goose. Also saw a Pink-footed one, but that wasn't even year-tick :)
Black-headed Gull (Larus ridibundus)
Sadly most of us missed both the ducks that were a bit of a main event; American Wigeon and Ferruginous Duck. Two or three people who happened to still be at the tower got to see the "fudgie", but with the wigeon we were at the right locale but 200 meters away behind a hill... House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Life tick two was Eagle-owl in the old limestone quarry outside Skövde, 30 minutes away from the lake.
Eurasian Eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) Photographed with SLR through scope.
All in all a nice trip with good weather, two lifers and sixteen year ticks, but the foreign ducks were no fun at all :)
Three life ticks during a day in Halland is not bad, but I could have gotten more if the weather had been better. Tundra Swan, Red Kite and Bearded Reedling could have been accompanied on my list by for example Hen Harrier, Golden Eagle and Rough-legged Buzzard had there been less wind, less drizzle and more thermals. Had also hoped for Snow Bunting and Shorelark, and there were probably larks in one spot, but they proved impossible to see from the tower and part of the road was flooded.
Tomorrow there will be an attempt for Three-toed Woodpecker again and also a visit to this winter's best Bittern spot.
I went to Ottenby Bird Observatory to assist a friend in collecting material (bird lice) for his research. During my eight days stay I got 124 Öland-ticks, 43 hand-ticks, 32 bite-ticks and 11 life-ticks. Among the hand- and bite-ticks Mute Swan, Great Cormorant, Red-Backed Shrike and Whimbrel stand out from the mass. Shrike for it's hell of a bite and the others for sheer size :)
The light house just south of the observatory by night. The observatory staff dormitories are in
the white house in the front.
Most of the life-ticks were species either breeding in or migrating through Sweden that either won't show up in the Gothenburg area or get there only very seldom or on remote islands. The Black Stork however, hasn't been regularily reproducing in Sweden since around 1950 but visits the southern parts yearly. The first one I saw came over the observatory heading SW and was later seen on the mainland. The second one I saw (less than two hours later) was soaring above farmlands north of the observatory along with a White-tailed Eagle and four Buzzards.
Very angry Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) at the ringing lab. That bill is evil! :)
The main reason we had for scanning the agricultural fields there and then was the Pacific Plover that was discovered there on August 2 and remained there until the 10th ( I went home 8th). As me and D were busy with lice in the lab when the rest of the staff went by car to look at the plover we had to go up there by bicycle ( a 20 min ride, oh noes! ;)). Took us three trips until we actually found it, on the evening of the 4th, same day as we got the storks. On the way back I life-ticked European Goldfinch, a statistically common bird, but hard to find outside perfect habitats.
Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) posing in the lab.
The lice gathering deserves some explanation. Different bird species have different lice. Some birds have different lice on head, belly and wings, cormorants have lice in the throat, almost all passerines worldwide share at least one louse species and so on. Collecting and DNA-sequencing lice from a variety of bird species will tell wether the lice on different birds actually are the same species and so on and wether different bird species are related in the way normally percieved.
To get the lice off the bird a collar made of dense fabric is put around the bird's neck and tightened with a drawstring. The bird is then put in a glass jar accompanied by some ether absorbed in a piece of cotton. The collar is stretched to cover the mouth of the jar and a lid with most of it except the screw thread cut away is screwed on in order to secure the collar in place. After 10-20 minutes depending on size the bird is released and the lice it carried with it are hopefully dead and still in the jar. Sometimes the birds managed to pull their heads down into the jar and had to be released due to over exposure to ether. One bird managed to take off with the collar still on (Damn, those Turnstones are sneaky bastards :D). Birds too large (Cormorant, Swan, Oystercatcher, Gulls) or with too dense plumages (Terns) were searched manually.
Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) under treatment
Everything accounted for, it was a lovely trip and I would really like to go back there and work some time. The normal age for a ringer assistant is around 17 years though, so I'd better learn to ring birds somewhere so I can work as a ringer. They are usually older than 17 :)
Hoping for a trip to southern Halland on Sunday morning to get the Iberian Chiffchaff that has chiffed and chaffed there since early may. As if Sweden's second Iberian ever wasn't enough, someone spotted a Greenish Warbler in a town a bit more than halfway down there? Upcoming warblerfest? Stay tuned...
At the first stop on the way to Getterön, the first bird I spotted was a life-tick. Pied Avocet. Nice! It's not exactly a rare species, but they live in distinctly limited areas. Other than the avocets not much of a thrill there. The water level is quite high right now, so waders smaller than redshank had probably moved on already. Pied Avocet.
Next stop gave nice observations of Common Redstart, Linnet, Dunnock and new life-tick Little Tern. (It was fishing all the time, so no photo). Many Lapwings, Oystercatchers, Redshanks, Pied Avocets and some Greenshanks and Wood Sandpipers.
On the way to the hide at Getterön nature center I got life tick three for the day. A very cooperative Sedge Warbler climbed up a reed and posed for several minutes. Sedge Warbler
In the basin there were thousands of Black-headed Gull and Greylag Goose. There were also Gadwall, Spoonbill, Great Crested Grebe, Curlew and Life tick number four the day; Black-tailed Godwit. No photo of them either, since they were barely identifyable with 20x magnification, which means extremely blurry pictures with my beaten and dented camera, cheap scope and wobbly tripod... In the hide there were two Barn Swallows nesting.
Barn Swallow. Didn't mean to use flash but forgot to turn it off...
Rounded up the visit with coffee, muffin and drooling over new scopes at the center. Pheasant, Thrush Nightingale and Common Whitethroat could be heard from the parking lot.
On the way home we stopped by a good spot for Great Reed Warbler and Savi's Warbler, but they where nowhere to be heard. Two Corn Crakes, three Ospreys and singing Whinchats was nice compensation though. All in all, we saw at least 66 species in about six hours. Nice result considering that we weren't trying very hard :)
26 year old birder from Gothenburg, Sweden.
My goal for 2007 was get above 200 life-ticks. I managed 215 and will attempt to get to 250 in 2008. A lot harder!
Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus)
C ringing a Crow (Corvus corone cornix), Staloluokta 2008-06-15
Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica)
Woodlark (Lullula arborea)
Red Kite (Milvus milvus)
Corn Bunting (Miliaria calandra)
Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio)
Common Lizard (Zootoca vivipara)
Serin (Serinus serinus) Singing male
Black redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) male
Black redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) female
White Stork (Ciconia ciconia)
Blue-headed Wagtail (Motacilla flava flava)
Four-spotted Chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata)
Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)
Fallow Deer (Dama dama) Feral herd, introduced in the 16th century.
Bluethroat (Luscinia svecia)
Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata) They were all over the place! Swarms!
Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)
Serin (Serinus serinus)
Little Tern (Sternula albifrons)
Jackdaw (Corvus monedula)
Grasshopper Warbler (Locustella naevia) Digiscoped with DSLR.
Sandwich Tern (Sterna sandvicensis)
Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa) DSLR-digiscoped.
Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata)
Reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) 
Spotted Redshank (Tringa erythropus)
Swift (Apus apus)
Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo)
Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus)
Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)
Common Crane (Grus grus)
Black-headed Gull (Larus ridibundus)
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Eurasian Eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) Photographed with SLR through scope.
Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena)
The light house just south of the observatory by night. The observatory staff dormitories are in 
Very angry Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) at the ringing lab. That bill is evil! :)
Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) posing in the lab.
Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) under treatment
Pied Avocet. 
Sedge Warbler
Barn Swallow. Didn't mean to use flash but forgot to turn it off...