This time I started around Tornio, in south-western Finnish Lapland, just on the Swedish border, on the 4th of May. The weather was splendid, blue skies, light winds and +9 C, and a perfect light for photography. The air is crystal-clear, water from melting snow is running everywhere, big rivers are just about to shed their ice and the sea is still frozen-over. Near the coast open areas were partly free from snow, allowing birds to find some food, while most of the forests were still out of reach, because of the deep and wet, soft snow. Recent warm spells had caused some fields and meadows to flood, and these were a haven to migrants. Cranes, Whooper Swans and Greylag and Bean Geese as well as Black-headed Gulls were around in their hundreds, while flocks of ducks, Curlews and Lapwings were everywhere. And raptors, they were showing well too. Rough-legged Buzzards were still on migration, heading even further north, but every now and then some would stop to hover above the fields. Two different Peregrines, and adult female and a yearling, 5 different Hen Harriers (both adult males and females), 3 Common Buzzards, Kestrel, male Merlin, Sparrowhawk and a young Goshawk, all put in multiple appearances during the day, and all this within a radius of 500m! The topping of the cake was, however, two different Pallid Harriers, an adult female and a young male, which were also hunting the same area. Watching the female hunt was quite impressive, as she stooped like a Peregrine from the skies, trying to hit the Black-headed Gulls bathing in the flooded field.
I stayed in the area for an intense 6 hours and this afternoon alone had already made the whole trip worthwhile.

Excellent light for flight-shots -Crane

adult female Pallid Harrier

For the evening I moved further north, to north of the Arctic Circle. Here the landscape was clearly more wintery. Snow was still lying knee-deep everywhere, with just some exposed patches of bare ground on the road banks and steeper slopes. And there were no birds at all! During all evening I heard one Mistle Thrush, but did not see even one passerine! However, there are other birds than passerines. Quite early on I found a very obliging Short-eared Owl, just by the roadside, which I photographed from the car for quite a while.

The Short-eared Owl from 4th of May

And half an hour later I found the first Great Grey Owl (GGO), in an area where they had been seen all spring. What a bird! It was perched just by the tarmac on one of these 1 metre tall white plastic markers indicating the edge of the road for snow-ploughs in winter. But it did not stay for long and soon moved back into the forest. All in all some 40 GGOs are estimated to have occurred in this restricted area during spring. Living so close to a major road is dangerous for a low-flying owl, and several were found killed after collisions with cars. About 10 days ago the numbers started to decline, coinciding with warmer weather and a rapid snow-melt, so possibly the birds moved into the forests to breed as soon as the conditions permitted.
At 10pm I finally found a small field with 3 GGOs hunting! The sun had already set some time ago, but I just couldn’t resist taking some pictures. I really felt privileged being surrounded by three giant owls just minding their own business, hunting, without taking any notice at all of my presence. Finding the GGOs was actually one of the main reasons for this trip, as we still need some completing recordings for the upcoming book on owls by The Sound Approach. These birds were all just hunting to themselves, and every vole the managed to get, they also kept to themselves. No courtship feeding, no calling, no signs of breeding behaviour, just getting on. Anyway, this would be also my hotspot for the coming days.

The next day, May 5th, was grey and dull. During the day I was driving around searching through new areas hoping to see more owls. The only one I could find was one of the trio from last night, which had chosen a tree just next to the field. It was just roosting, but you could see how it reacted towards the sounds from the voles moving under the snow, as its head turned suddenly every now and then and it was staring at this fixed point for ages, just as if it could see through the snow watching the doings of the voles beneath.

There were also some flocks of newly arrived migrants along the roadsides, mostly Redwing, Fieldfare and Mistle Thrush and Chaffinch and Bramblings. The best bird was a female Ring Ouzel, which is a rare bird in Finland. Other nice sightings were an adult female Peregrine, with the biggest and fullest crop I’ve ever seen, and a stunning male Hen Harrier, which swept past the flock of feeding songbirds in seconds.

Male Hen Harrier at its best

At 7pm the forecasted snow-storm started and the visibility dropped to almost nothing. Decided still to take some shorts of the GGOs in this weather, since the trio was again in the same field as the night before. At one point a young Rough-legged Buzzard appeared out of nowhere and started to mob the nearest owl, and I managed to get some decent flight shots of the raptor. However, the wind had by now gained so much force that the owls couldn’t use their favourite perches in the middle of the field, but had to revert to the forest edge to find some shelter. On my way back I found a new GGO just by the roadside, bringing yesterday’s and today’s total up to 8 different birds.

GGO hunting in a heavy snow-storm on May 5th

Redwing

... and Ring Ouzel

It’s now the morning of 6th of May when I am writing this. The storm has continued all night, and when I look out there is probably about 10-15 cm of new snow, with more coming all the time! It looks like mid-winter again. The road conditions will be interesting today for sure, but probably also interesting conditions for photography. We’ll see.

But the Canaries are truly birdless! This was certainly not the best time of the year for a birding visit, the migration period in Sep-Oct or Mar-May would have been much better, but even so I could never have anticipated how void of birds these islands were. The habitat was superb and untouched in many places, but for ages not one bird, not seen, not heard. I have never been in a place like that before. There was not one species , which would have been numerous and found everywhere, on the contrary all birds were scarce and very sparsely distributed. For most species the daily numbers were counted just in singles, sometimes rarely in the lower tens, and occasionally a big flock appeared changing the picture, like 60+ Kestrels in one flock on Tenerife, 100 Linnets and 80 Lesser Short-toed Larks on Lanzarote, and so on.

Most birders probably visit the islands for the handful of endemic species/forms occurring here. We managed to see all the specials quite easily, although obtaining good views, or actually any views at all, of the Laurel Pigeon Columba junoniae proved to be hard work, but we managed in the end. Seeing Blue Chaffinch and Canary Islands Chat was great, as was looking for the two endemic pigeons in the laurel forests of the western isles. Personally I also enjoyed the local Chiffchaff, which is so different in structure, plumage as well as calls and song from any Chiffchaff on the continent –no doubt a good species! Also the two local forms of Kestrel, which were surprisingly common, and the Buzzard, were interesting to study, and I noticed some peculiarities, which I haven’t found mentioned in the current literature, but more about that in another context.

If the islands were void of birds, so was the sea, truly disappointing. We spent a total of some 15 hours on the deck per cruise seawatching, but rewards were few and far between. All in all we had 1+1+2 Cory’s Shearwaters, 1 Baroli’s, 1 Leach’s Petrel, 2 petrel sp, 1+1 kittiwakes, 1 Glossy Ibis (!) and 3 juv Gannets. I know that the time of year is not right for seabirds in these waters, but still you are always hoping for miracles to happen when you are on a big boat far out at sea.

Thanks to friends, clients and the cruise company for making the trip such a great experience!
All in all, glad I did it, but I probably won’t be going back.

Berthelot's Pipit Anthus berthelotii, the most common and widespread of the endemics. Lanzarote, Dec17th,2011.

Houbara Bustard Chlamydotis undulata, one of the specials of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. Lanzarote, Dec 17th, 2011.

Canary Islands Chat Saxicola dacotiae, male, Fuerteventura, Dec 9th, 2011.

Blue Chaffinch Fringilla teydea, male, Tenerife, Dec11th,2011

Bolle's Pigeon Columba bollii,La Palma, 13thDec,2011

Island Canary Serinus canaria, male, Dec 11th, Tenerife

 

Canary Islands Blue Tit Cyanistes [caeruleus] teneriffae. Recently accorded species status, but even then may appear as either Cyanistes teneriffae or Cyanistes ultramarinus depending on source!? Tenerife, 11th Dec,2011.

Canary Islands Chiffchaff Phylloscopus canariensis, here feeding on an endemic "bluebell" Canarias canariensis. Gran Canaria, Dec 13th,2011.

PS. (added on Oct 4th) This bird was identified as a GSE about half an hour before it appeared at Hanko Bird Observatory. The following day most likely the same bird (cannot be sure!) was identified as a LSE, largely based on the pale and contrasting upperparts! On Sep 17th definitely the same bird was seen and photographed at Kirkkonummi, Porkala, some 3o km SW of Helsinki, and was identified as a GSE (images can be seen at www.tarsiger.com under GSE).

What do we learn from this? Spotted Eagles of today, particularly non-juveniles, are extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, to identify in the field. This is the result from the large-scale interbreeding between the spotted eagle species, which has been well documented e.g. from the Baltic States and Poland. Natural hybrids are in fact common, a painful truth, which we cannot deny any longer. For the identification the importance of good quality photographs  cannot be stressed enough.

Dick

In direct sunlight the underwing coverts were clearly brown with a darker carpal area.

...but most of the time the underwing contrast resembled a normal 2nd cy GSE.

I have taken part in the identification discussions of many of these birds. Rather than repeating myself here, check out the following images and the discussions behind these links and see what You think. Bird identification cannot get much better than this!

http://www.netfugl.dk/pictures.php?id=showpicture&picture_id=42962#4034e6e11362abac

http://www.netfugl.dk/pictures.php?id=showpicture&picture_id=42825

regards,
Dick

and to secure a booking send an email to:
curso@fundacionmigres.org

See you in Tarifa!
Dick

Day2. Birding all day – and night – around Kuusamo. It is a fantastic year for owls in this part of Finland, with record numbers of breeding Tengmalm’s and Hawk Owls. Voles are abundant too, and one could see them running across the roads here and there, several per day. The first day produced a lot of goodies, all spontaneously found while birding, except for the Ural Owl, which was a “twitch”: Hazel Grouse, Red-necked Phalarope, a fledged brood of Hawk Owls with attending parents, Rustic and Little Buntings, Black Woodpecker and Wryneck, both responding well to my whistling, Great Grey Shrike bringing a vole to its nest, a female Ural Owl with chicks (the first confirmed breeding for Kuusamo of this more southerly species for at least four decades!), several Short-eared Owls and more Lapland Ringlets.

Day3. Still in Kuusamo, where the day took off with a brood of fledged Two-barred Crossbills. Shortly after I visited a nearby nest of Black Woodpecker, where both parents brought food to the nearly fledged young.

Adult female Black Woodpecker feeding male and female chicks.

Later on a male Pine Grosbeak, a pair of Merlins by the nest, a brood of newly-hatched Green Sandpipers with both adults present too (normally the females migrate south soon after hatching). To my surprise, the male and the female had very different plumages, something I have to look up in the literature. Also spent some time with a flock of Common Crossbills (extremely numerous this year) feeding on spruce cones on the ground on a recent clear-felling. Some immature males were incredibly colourful, bright yellow and red, looking like misplaced tropical mini-parrots.

Common Crossbill, 2nd cal yr male -the mini-parrot

Day4. A rather slow day exploring the vast wilderness areas of N Kuusamo, checking some raptor territories. One of the Golden Eagle nests was occupied and held two healthy-looking chicks, probably 3-4 weeks old. Also saw one of the adults high above the nest, which is quite rare to see, as they normally keep away from humans. The last Calypso orchids of the season were still in good shape, but most had withered by now.

Day5. Left Kuusamo in the morning heading north. After a drive of some 100km a pair of adult Golden Eagles were hunting together, not far from the main road, and I managed to get some record shots of both birds. Two hours later I was standing below a Golden Eagle’s nest, which I found some 10 years ago. The nest was not occupied, but showed clear signs of attendance earlier in the season. Rushing on further north, logging in a road-side Hawk Owl and a very northerly Roe Deer as I went, until I made a stop at a familiar bog, known from before as a good birding site. Before the car had stopped I could see a familiar flight-path high up in the sky –displaying Jack Snipe! Jumped out and found two different Jack Snipes doing their wide-ranging circuits above the bog, stopping every now and then to do the “trampling” in mid-air. The wind was too strong to hear the birds, but their display flight is unique and easy to recognize, once you are familiar with it. As I got even further north I came into the more hilly country with open tundra and fjells (gently sloping mountains) –Rough-legged Buzzard country. I checked 8 nests known to me from before, and 5 had one bird in the nest while the other one was on guard nearby, a fairly good result. There had been lots of lemmings only a few weeks earlier, around snow-melting, but now they had dispersed, and the only thing I could see was big dark voles, probably Root Voles (a.k.a. Tundra Vole) Microtus oeconomus, which were common particularly in boggier places. At around midnight (sun still shining!) I checked another Golden Eagle site, now in a cliff, and saw an adult on the nest feeding two white chicks. On a nearby bog the Long-tailed Skuas had a rest, while Short-eared Owls where hunting actively.

Adult Long-tailed Skua at midnight

The following days were variable, with one still and sunny day, followed by high winds and torrential rain the next day. This is typical of the weather of the far north, where hot continental air meets the cold air from the Arctic Ocean. If you are lucky enough to get fine weather up here, enjoy it for as long as it lasts, it could be over within hours!

This male Willow Grouse let me approach to within two metres of it, and even then it just slowly walked to the side!

A re-introduction program of Bald Ibis has been going on in S Spain for some years now, and this spring several pairs are breeding in the wild, all adults fitted with rings and satellite transmitters. Don’t fall from your stool if you see a party of Bald Ibises flying pass when you are raptor watching. I was close to, when it happened to me at Tarifa on the 3rd.

Incubating Bald Ibis Geronticus eremita, S Spain, 5th May 2011.

Ruppell's Vulture (lower) with immature Griffon, note the dark plumage, lacking the underwing contrast of Griffon. These birds were very high in a hazy sky, which explains the poor quality of the image. Pelayo, S Spain, May 5th, 2011.