My first Lappish experience: one to embrace!

From the 2nd till the 7th of March I joined a student trip (from ESN Joensuu) to Levi, a famous ski resort in Lapland. Levi is located just north of Kittilä, in the north east of Lapland. Beforehand I had done some birding preparation with the help of tiira.fi but, most observations of my target species were not in the area where I would be staying.. and since I was not on a birding trip I would just wait and see what happens! And this turned out pretty well I must say!

For the long the 700km up north we left Joensuu at 1.30 am and arrived at our first destination: Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, too much commercial nonsense if you ask me. Taking a photo with Santa Claus for 25 euros, why not? :) However, this was our (and mine) first experience of crossing the arctic circle, and yeah, after crossing it I really felt like I was in a different world! After Rovaniemi, we visited Lainio Snow Village, ca. 30km west of Kittilä. That was a really nice visit, seeing nice sculptures and you could also spend a night in the snow village, sleeping on a matress above a pile of ice! Beforehand, I saw on tiira that the Azure Tit that has been present in Lapland was still there, and I was only 30km away from it... too bad it was in the other direction, so no chance for me..

Crossing the arctic circle near Rovaniemi

A room in the snow village, how comfortable!

After visiting these places we arrived in Levi around 17.00. We had a nice cottage with 13 people and enjoyed our first meal in Lapland together. The next morning, the 3rd of March, we were up for a Husky safari. But first I had a small walk and saw my first new bird in Lapland: a Siberian Jay! It was at some feeders in front of a house, very nice and unexpected! After this, we went for the husky tour. This is one of the things you have to do when you are in Lapland. In pairs we could get on a sledge with five huskies in front and start the safari. Driving the sledge through this amazing Lappish landscape was amazing!

My first Siberian Jay (Perisoreus infaustus)

The Husky Safari

In the afternoon I had a walk with some of my friends in the nearby forest. As we were walking in the forest we suddenly flushed three Hazelgrouse! They were not shy at all and I could take some really nice photos! This is only the second time ever that I see them so well (most of the time you hear only the wingbeats when you flush them).

Hazel Grouse (Tetrastes bonasia), female and male

Dipper (Cinclus cinclus)

 

Wednesday (4th) and Thursday (5th) were mostly spend doing cross country skiing, which was really nice! On wednesday we did a track of 20 km, through some hills and flat areas close to Levi. During the track I added another new species to my list: Siberian Tit! A group of at least 7-8 crossed the skiing track. I noticed them first by their calls, clearly different than any other tits, reminding most of Willow Tit. I tried to make some recordings which I might add later. Also during the skiing I had a pair of Siberian Jays. Such curious birds as they come to check you out!

Cross-country skiing

Thursday morning I made a hike to the top of a hill next to the Levi fell, wonderful views! Thursday afternoon we did a skiing track of 15 km, very nice weather but few birds, just had 2 Siberian Tits, nice to see them again.

Beautiful landscape...

Friday morning we tried a new hiking track on the eastern side of the village. Some of my friends had seen 2 Willow Grouse there and photographed them very well... So I wanted to see if i could find them. Unfortunately they were no where to be found. We did see good numbers of Siberian Jays (at least 6-8 birds). Next to this I had a singing Pine Grosbeak, nice surprise. The best surprise of all came at the end of the hike.... I suddenly spotted a Hawk Owl perched in a dead tree! Amazing! It was being mobbed by Siberian Jays continuously. After this successfull hike we proceeded to the city where we spend the rest of the afternoon in the spa, very relaxing.

Siberian Jays (Perisoreus infaustus)

The Hawk Owl (Surnia ulula)

 

Friday evening around 5.30 we left for Joensuu again. We did not see the northern lights due to cloudyness all week... a real shame.. hopefully I will still see some here in Joensuu, fingers crossed. Nevertheless a great week in Lapland!

Levi at night, during a snow-shoe trek

Ski piste at Levi

Snowy Owls & hundreds of Cranes

Last sunday, the 23rd of February, we went to see the Snowy Owls on Vlieland! Together with my dad and Henri. They've been present there for quite some time now, and we finally had the time to visit them.

We took the ferry at 10.40 from Harlingen and arrived on the island around 11.30. We rented a bike and then headed in the direction of the owls. There was a strong wind blowing so the 6 km drive took us about 45 minutes!

Arriving there we soon found a Snowy Owl perched on a dune, quite distant though, The view through the scope was great, but there was not much activity so we looked for the 2nd bird. I soon saw on waarneming.nl that the second bird had been seen. So we headed there. This bird was much closer - but still not really active. We spend the entire afternoon with the birds, very enjoyable!

Here are some shots:

Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus), first winter female, bird nr. 1

,

Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus), first winter female, bird nr.2 - much darker and more barred

Location of the 2nd bird

The next day (monday 24th) a huge wave a Cranes passed through NL, I was birding at Radio Kootwijk, looking for parrot crossbills - only finding common -when I got lots of messages reporting groups of Cranes passing by. At that moment, I immediatly left and went to a high point with a good view to look for the Cranes: with succes!

 Common Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra), male

Look-out point from which I saw 320 Cranes, Achterste Steenberg, Hoog Buurlo

Cranes (Grus grus), distant and close-by!

Signs of Spring

As a result of the mild weather we're having, lots of birds have the feeling that it's spring already. I visited the Paleispark at Paleis het Loo this morning and had a great morning. Clear skies, with clouds every now and then, together with some slight wind gusts. The birds were in full swing: active Great Spotted Woodpeckers, most species of Tit, singing Chaffinches, Hawfinches, Mistle Thrush, displaying Goshawk and so on. Wonderful. The signs of winter were still conspicious however, with hundreds of Bramblings and Chaffinches. Also, groups of Fieldfares and Redwings were still present in the park.

My visit had a special goal: finding Middle-spotted Woodpeckers. It only took me about half an hour before I found them! I was walking along a lane with old oaks and suddenly I heard and saw two woodpeckers chasing each other. They turned out to be Middle-spotted!

The male showed well for a while, foraging in a oak at close distance. I lost the other bird as soon as I focused on the male, I presume it was a female because it was not really vocal, but I'm not sure. A bit later the male took off and started singing in a patch of oak trees a few 100m away from me. I enjoy the Jay-song of the woodpeckers, very distinctive.

Anyway, I got a couple of decent shots from the bird, if I would have my phone with me a good sound recording would have been collected as well,

 Middle-spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos medius), male

Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla), male adult winter

Winter keeps getting better and better: White-billed Diver!!

We've had an unbelievable good winter for rare birds in The Netherlands so far, it's crazy. Today I saw my 4th lifer of the year already... Two-barred Crossbill, Brown Shrike, Caspian Plover (last Saturday) and now White-billed Diver. Incredible!

Just take a look at this list of (really) rare birds present in NL right now:

A printscreen of yesterday's homepage

Yesterday a White-billed Diver (or Yellow-billed Loon) had been found on the Rhederlaag, a recreational lake near Arnhem. It's a good place for seabirds. I've seen Velvet Scoter and Long tailed Duck there for example. And now this place strikes again, but this time with a real badass bird!

The bird was discovered late in the afternoon and we weren't able to twitch it, so we went this morning. Together with my dad and Tommy we arrived there at 9.40. Luckily for us (and lots of other people), the bird was still there and showed really well.

We first saw the bird at quite close range (~150m). Not much later the bird swam towards the sun, bad light, and the bird was swimming further and further away. We tried from the other side of the lake where we had good views, but more distant than before (~500-600m). The light was perfect, so that made up for the distance.

Tammo got a recordshot of the first moments:

White-billed Diver (Gavia adamsii), first winter; what an enormous, massive bill,

As Tommy and I had to go to the uni we took off. Hopefully the bird will stay longer so we can visit it again:)

By the way, here: http://waarneming.nl/soort/photos/812?from=2014-01-27&to=2014-01-27 are already lots of other good pics of the bird. Check it out whilst I'm still enjoying this lifer from behind my laptop!

First for NL: Brown Shrike!

The weekend started very relaxed, but it would turn out to be a rather hectic saturday!

We decided to head for the Parrot Crossbills near Nijmegen that have been present there for almost two months. A group of 25 birds is being really cooperative and we decided we wanted to see them, I mean why not!

When we arrived there the birds also just arrived and flew towards us, landing in some pine trees further down the path. It was immedatly and nice oppertunity to record them:
http://waarneming.nl/sound/view/24653

And here some sonograms:

 Sonogram of Parrot Crossbills (Loxia pytyopsittacus), mixed with Common Crossbills (Loxia curvirostra)

The only thing was: there were too many people around for them to go down and drink water from a small pool, so we only had views of them in flight, and in the pine trees.

Still quite happy with this flight shot!

Then in the afternoon things got exciting!

We got an alert that a possible Brown Shrike had been found near Gendringen, in the utmost south-east of the province of Gelderland. It was already late (not much light), but we decided to give it a go! We arrived there at 16.10, with still quite a bit of light. 

The bird was sitting in some small willows and thorn bushes, approximately 200-300m away from us. What bird!!! A first for NL, and that in winter time! 

The group of twitchers that had arrived by 16.30. Aprroximately 100-150 saw this first for NL yesterday before it got dark.

Here are some record shots from Tammo:

Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus), first winter; note the striking headpattern: upperside head light brown, black eye stripe, white supercilium and whitish cheek. Back is brownish, secondaries form a light panel, brownish and rounded tail. Barring on the underparts make it a 1st-winter.

There was also this Long-eared Owl catching mice at a few metres distance which drew a lot of attention:

Long-eared Owl (Asio otus)

Can there be a better start of the year than this?

The 1st of January, birding wise, was an excellent beginning of the year 2014. The previous day two Two-barred Crossbills had been found in the forests near Maarn. The following day, whilst we were hiking on the Hoog Buurlosche Heide I saw an alert that the birds had been seen again. When got home around 12:00 my dad and I soon got into the car and drove up there.

We had to wait for an hour orso, but then suddenly an adult male Two-barred Crossbill landed in the top of larch together with some other crossbills, showing well for ca. 1 minute. We didn't get to enjoy our lifer for very long as the group took off again! Then a few moments later I discovered the second bird: an adult female, foraging on larch cones deeper in the bunch of larch trees. This bird also showed well for a short period of time and then took off as well! We didn't have the time to take photos but we were happy with wanted species!

Today, the 2nd of January we headed back to the Pygmy Owl again. The bird sat closer than the previous time and allowed is to take great photos! Other species observed today: a Great Grey Shrike, some Crossbills, Green Woodpecker and some other species that were new for the year 2014.

Eurasian Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium passerinum), the last two photos taken when it was almost dark!