It's just one of those days

Had a sleep in this morning so started at 6:30. There was a faint mist over the golf course and the sea that hampered visibility quite a bit. First round was not what had been expected and with every half hour following, the day slowly progressed. A change in the weather caused the fog to thicken and spread out, pushing the migrating Blue Tits down. We hoped for some good amounts but unfortunately had to settle for a day total of 36, very disappointing. A Tree Sparrow was a nice practice on ageing though.

Absolutely no migration of Common Buzzards in the air and only 3400 Chafflings made it a very dull day. The choice was easily made to go and sleep a bit at noon, a decision I would live to regret. I was halfway down to dreamland when I heard a loud scream outside, since the people that were outside kid around a lot I didn't think that much of it at first but a split second later I heard a second thing: 'Örn'. The first thing that came to mind was that, another, Short-toed Eagle (Ormörn) was coming in from either Ljungen or Kanalen but again a split second later I realised that it was Andreas who was shouting and that the word 'Vråk' could clearly be discerned, I jumped out of my bed, grabbed scope and bins and ran down the stairs and outside the door. Uphill were a handful happy but really confused looking birders, the confirmation came, an Örnvråk had just passed. Long-legged Buzzard! I ran to my bike and started to cycle to Kolabacken, the next point in line where it'll surely pass. On the way there I was thinking that it was so weird that with so few Buzzards migrating, a large soaring bird would actually show up. This fact should've made me realize that this bird wouldn't migrate and would return inland sooner or later, but it didn't and I continued to Kolabacken. With Andre and Arvid in my wake I arrived at Kolabacken only to find Nils Kjellén shout: ''It turned back, go to the heath!!''. I threw my bike on the ground and jumped into the car with Andre and Arvid, to Ljungen! Arriving at the heath we found a completely relaxed group of birders that didn't have the slightest clue what had just passed them, a subtle shout ''Örnvråk!'' didn't do the trick so I called out the Dutch name: ''Arendbuizerd!''. Again very little response, we got desperate. A couple of thermals with raptors had zilk unusual species though there was a Black Kite (that we all realized we saw about one hour after we actually saw it) in one of the thermals. A big bird soaring solely in the distance was picked up and deemed worthy of the predicate 'probably THE bird' but vanished again behind the trees. Now finally people started to show some interest in 3 boys that were looking in a completely different direction than they were. 'Where is it?' and 'What did you say you saw?' were the two main questions, we told the story and jumped into the car again and drove to the Fågelstation. Lying on my back on the backseat of the car I had a clear view on three sides of the car and after about 700m from Ljungen I looked through the rearview window and saw 3 birds soaring, a millionth of a second later I shouted 'It's behind us, stop the car, NOW!!'. All too slow the car pulled over and Andre, Arvid and me jumped out shouting: It is it, it is it! We jumped up and down like children while grinning hysterically. A car full of birders, including David Erterius, came dashing by and saw the bird as well. We returned to Ljungen to spread the good word and found the crowd, again, not interested. Björn Malmhagen had picked up the bird as well and we could see it beautifully as it made its way north. It came back several times, soaring quite low in the thermals. After a failed attempt to pick it up on the east side of Skånör we went back to the Fågelstation where we'd enjoyed the tale of how it was seen and, especially, how it returned 3 times! Straight over the station, having the pictures in mind, we should've stayed there. Nevertheless it was a stunning 2nd calendar year bird that made us realize anything is possible, even on the days you least expect it.

A feast started with bbq-ed sausages and hamburgers for everyone, a very enjoyable evening!

Picture by David Erterius

Swewatch

Anyone who knows me only the slightest bit knows that whenever there is a seawatch at hand, I'm in. Therefore, the minute that the boys here started to get anxious about Wednesdays winds there was no doubt that I would go with. Ringing was sure to be cancelled due to winds over 13 m/s and so I found myself in the car with Kaj, Sissel and David. We picked up another birder, Mattias Ullman, in Malmö and drove to Kattvik on the southwest side of the Bay of Laholm.
Immediately it was apparent that I had miscalculated a bit. Initially I suspected the bay to be really small and hence the shearwaters and other goodies would be well visible all the time, I was wrong. Had I been looking onto a map I could've seen that the bay is in fact bigger than the whole Falsterbo peninsula! A bit of a shock. Anyhew, seawatching began and I took a view at about 11 o'clock (these digits are based on seeing yourself as the middlepoint of a clock with 12 o'clock being right ahead) like what I was used to in Holland. Strange was it then when the first bird was picked up flying to the right at about 1 o'clock, an Arctic Skua at about 4km distance. Had I missed this? It could easily be the case since it was so far away and was flying reasonably low on the surface of the water, I continued watching at 11 o'clock. About an hour later David shouted 'Mindre Lira!' (Manx Shearwater). I looked up and to my surprise saw his scope turned towards the inner parts of the bay at about 3 o'clock! What the.... The bird passed close at 700m and was visible from east to west. Getting curious about 'what the deal' was here I asked Kaj about whether you search for a bird or just keep one position in your scope. To my surprise he indeed said that you look for the birds, totally different than in Holland!

The first time I ever went seawatching, it was at Camperduin, I learned from the counter at that moment (I believe it was Maarten Platteeuw) that it was best to keep your telescope fixed on 1 particular point instead of continuously scanning the water. This technique did fine at all places I seawatched so far as long as there was even a bit of migration. As soon as there were very little birds to be found, you'd scan and find them yourself instead of letting them fly into your scope view.

At this point I knew that this wasn't going to be a 'good' day to Dutch standards but it would be hard work all day. Fulmars and Great Skuas popped up at 11 o'clock and would fly either into the bay or fast SW, other birds would appear at around 12-1 o'clock and would fly along the horizon to the east or west, coming not a hint closer. Getting up at 4:30 every morning is tiring and so I'm not really proud of my next move; I slept in the back of the car, only occasionally waking up by the loud yell of someone and then seeing the bird they were yelling about before again falling into a deep comatose sleep. To my shame in the end I actually saw all good things with 3 1cy Long-tailed Skuas and a 1cy Sabine's Gull being the best.

Moroccan Harrier

In January and February of this year I visited Morocco for 2 weeks together with 3 birding friends. On the 9th of February we had have the entire desert, atlas and coast section plus even a bit we didn't anticipated but eventually had time for, Khniffis Lagoon. The 9th was our last day before our flight from Marrakech back to the Dutch/German border and we planned to spend it at the Souss Massa.
In the afternoon we already had a great day with Plain Martin and an Egyptian Mongoose to show for when we encountered an unexpected Black-shouldered Kite which soon multiplied into three birds. The birds where hunting over a field and we had some good albeit distant views. I decided to walk along the fields and hedgerows to get a bit closer while the others stayed at the car. While waiting for one of the birds to fly over towards me I noticed a Harrier flying at about 1km distance. First impression was that it was one of the better kind of Harriers, the smaller ones; Montagu's or Pallid due to the flight action. Hen was easily excluded by the complete lack of any streaking on the underparts, the highly orange tone of the underparts and especially the narrow hand (even though the exact number of protruding primaries couldn't be safely calculated). The head pattern had strong contrast and so, having a 400mm lens with me, I decided to take a couple of pictures. The two pictures below are the only two on which some things can actually be seen, there is one more 'decent' picture but that is of the 'not-so-helping-with-identification'-upperside. Realizing that the others were way to far away to be alarmed I tried to concentrate on identifying it, which failed since the bird disappeared shortly thereafter. Besides a short discussion on the bird at the car I didn't really think about it anymore 'till recently, I looked up the pictures again and quite a big deal could be seen. The blackish arm contrasting with the off grey hand, an extremely contrasting head made up of the dark face, pale collar and dark boa. Although I'm not sure if it's wishful thinking but it seems that the arm is three-toned with the black secondaries, dark orange greater underwing coverts and pale orange trailing edge.
Now I really think this bird is a 2ndCY Pallid Harrier but are the pics enough for it to get accepted by the/any Rarity Committee? I don't think so and would like people to tell me otherwise! Haha

Putative second calendar year Pallid Harrier, Souss Massa. 9-2-2011

Incredibly busy times these are, still occasionally locating nests and measuring eggs but now the time has come to catch and ring Long-tailed Skuas. Actually, we already caught 12 so far in the last days. The skuas area caught on the nest using either a walk-in trap or a spring trap which sets as soon as the bird sits on the eggs. The birds are then equipped with a steel ring on the left tibia, a green colour ring on the left tarsus and a ring with a geologger on the right tarsus, this way the birds have maximum spread of weight on the legs. We take measurements of the bill, head, wing, tail and tarsus. We weigh it, photograph it and then comes a tricky part; getting a blood sample. I’ll spare you the details but will assure you that the birds don’t have any lasting effect of our iny tiny operation. The bird is then released next to the nest after which it most of the time flies off to a small lake to preen or, in some more aggressive individuals, they immediately turn back and start attacking you again. Aggressiveness in the skuas varies a lot, some will attack you when you’re still 200-300m from the nest, they then swoop over you time after time hitting you with either legs or/and wings. Usually birds fly off at 70-100m distance and keep swooping with the occasional hit, often one of the birds will try and lure you away by making chick sounds and faking a nest at some distance from the real nest. Rarely we encounter birds that hardly do anything at all, today we had a pair of which the breeding individual flew up at 40-50m and they perched together on a rock, watching us take measurements of the eggs. The only birds that get a geologger are birds that have surely returned to that area for a/some year(s), remember; the data is only obtainable when you recatch an individual and birds that have returned over the years are more likely to return next year again. Easy aye?!

2 of the nicest pictures I made so far. The Pygmy Weasel was really anxious to get out of her 'den', later we found a litter of 5 cubs which she was probably trying to locate in her new nest.

Pygmy Weasel

Bird pictures will, apart from the occasional ringed bird, will depend on these landscape+bird shots thanks to the lack of a 55mm+ lens.
Red-necked Phalarope

We're camping in the mountains at the moment so updates are delayed, back asap!

Third and fourth day

As I speak I’m in the car with Johannes in his Ford Ka and we just passed Vilhelmina where we had pizza. Yesterday we said goodbye to Ester who had kindly taken us in for a second night in Lund. We started driving from Lund at 9, me and Johannes in 1 car and Juan, Paula, Manu and Rob in the other. It was clear that I had ‘chosen’ the better car ;) since both Johannes and me were keen on seeing birds of prey next to the road. After a smart and very close call with a Red Kite an Osprey was being chased by a Hooded Crow which was a good sight even from the car. Later on we had a dead Badger, a alive and kicking Red Fox and a Honey Buzzard. We visited some friends of Paula and Juan at Kvismarren, 2 lakes just north of Vätern where 15 pairs of Great Reed Warblers breed and thus the best location on seeing them and doing research in Sweden. The ringers were really kind and the surroundings of the ringershouse, which was situated a long way from the lakes, were nice. We saw lots of Common Cranes and there were Tree Sparrows and Pied Flycatchers breeding in the garden. We then pushed on north and had our first Elk! Especially Manu was really excited because it was his first Elk. A couple kms after the Elk 2 Black-throated Divers were a welcome sight, a bit later still we had an amazing sight of a breeding Black-throated Divers just 10 meters from the road! We searched a good location to sleep and found one just south of Eldforsen. There were several Woodcocks displaying and Rob and Johannes heard a Pygmy Owl which unfortunately wouldn’t call again. My first night in ‘the wild’ was nice though a slightly higher tent would’ve been better, my own fault. Rob, Johannes and I woke up early to try and look for some grouse. We succeeded in hearing distant Black Grouses displaying, 2 Black Woodpeckers were in a drumming contest and Common Cranes and Ravens were calling far away in the woods. The best sighting for me was, as always, a mammal; a small mouse ran over the road holding its tail up high, its tail was equally long as its body or fell just a bit short. Even though we don’t know exactly which species occur here, there can’t be too many species that fit that description. We had breakfast at a small cabin next to the road where 2 pairs of Pied Flycatchers bred. In the Netherlands the usual male form you see are grayish brown, slightly darker than the females but clearly distinguished by the white forehead patch. The males here in Sweden are stunningly velvety black which contrasts so nice with the pure white of the underparts, wing panel and forehead. Displaying Siskins were also a new sight for me, it resembled Greenfinch display very strongly. Birds along the road included White-headed Long-tailed Tit, Northern Bullfinch, Black-throated Diver and lots and lots of Fieldfares. Johannes and I had an exciting moment when shortly after breakfast I saw a shape sitting in a tree that resembled and owl, since it seemed so big I immediately shouted ‘Great-grey Owl, Great-grey Owl!’, we tried to signal to the others that we had seen something and quickly turned the car. Returning to the spot it seemed that my ‘shape’ was gone but there was a Common Buzzard nearby, bummer. We turned the car again and reached the spot for the third time and now there was a Honey Buzzard in the air flying really low! 3 bird theory or just my shortcomings? I held my mouth shut for a while..
This evening we will be in Ammarnäs and write about the rest of the day.

Well the evening was extremely nice. The first Reindeer started to appear just after Vilhelmina and a tame Red Fox next to the road was also nice, it seemed bigger and paler than the ones we get in Holland. Just before Sorsele there were some Whooper Swans nesting and flying by. Bad luck struck me and Johannes as we drove into Sorsele, a policeman directed us to the side of the road; he had taken our speed and we were driving 16 km to fast. Normally, in the Netherlands, I would expect a 70-80 Euro fine, we were fined with 2400 SEK!! This is more than 240 Euro, seems pretty harsh to me! You can imagine that it was a bit quiet in our car after that.
The way from Sorsele to Ammarnäs is about 90km long and really nice, unfortunately recent repairs to the road had the road covered in patched of gravel. Luck was with us again though when a Tengmalms Owl flew by just inches above the ground. Several Greenshanks and Woodcocks were flushed from the side of the road and we had a total of 12 Arctic Hares. Smart little hares these Arctic ones, slimmer and more stunningly colored compared to the European counterparts. When we were very close to Ammarnäs a bird flew over the road which turned out to be a Hawk owl! A new species for me and very unexpected to see one before reaching Ammarnäs.
The Ammarnäs field station is something I have never seen before, it’s an enormous house several 4 person and 2 person rooms. Rob and I were assigned nr 10 from which we have this view:





And this is my side of the room, I know, already a mess:

First and second day

Well here am I in Lund on the evening of my second day, let me elaborate on day 1 and 2.
Day 1 wasn’t that exciting, Rob and I met at Utrecht Central Station and travelled together to Venlo where Manu, Juan and Paula were waiting for us. The big surprise was that Juan and I have met before, last year in Falsterbo. We drove to Puttgarden in Germany to take the ferry to Rødby  Denmark and end up in Lund 2 hours later. The initial idea was to camp somewhere in Denmark but thankfully our Spanish companions had a friend in Lund who was kind enough to let us sleep in the house she is living in.
We slept in the next day and ended up having breakfast at about 10. There was very little of bird activity in the garden but a smart male Redstart is always nice, they are quite common actually since we heard a couple in Lund, even from the car. Because Rob and I have to make a spring trap to catch Skuas on their nests we had to buy suitable materials, we didn’t quite succeed but gonna try with what we got anyway. At 1 PM we had an appointment with Martin Green to discuss permits, rings and payments, but since he had other students we waited in the garden and saw a Sparrowhawk flying past and Swifts nesting in the University building. In the meantime we met up with Johannes, a German student who is going to do a lot of nest searching in Ammarnäs and is supposed to be extremely good at it so I’m very curious on working with him. The talk with Martin went smoothly and in the end he asked me and Rob to do some butterfly searching later in the season in Ammarnäs. Apparently there was an annual barbecue at the University that same afternoon but only for PhD students, Rob and I ‘snuck’ in anyway and had a good time chatting up with lots of different people and having a nice meal. At the end of the barbecue there was a ‘Biology Quiz’ for the students, it consisted of 11 multiple choice questions ranging from ‘What is wrong with the introduced White Stork population in Sweden?’ and ‘What animal wouldn’t you want to encounter in the wild in Sweden?’ to ‘What is the hottest part of the sun?’ and ‘What wouldn’t you find in a cell?’. Against all odds our team, cleverly called ‘The masters of mystery’ by Rob and me, won! The price were t-shirts and since the Spanish team already gave us a t-shirt of the ‘Ammarnäs Team 2011’ this was actually the 2^nd t-shirt we got today. After this victory we chatted some more before going to the shops to buy food for in the morning. After some internetting, hot chocolate milk and discussing the words ‘enclosure’ and ‘exclosure’ we went to bed. Tomorrow we’ll be driving north towards Ammarnäs but stopping halfway (nobody still knows where exactly). Johannes has a car of his own and I’ll be accompanying him on the way north, could be very funny in a Ford Ka ;). We’ll probably stop a couple of times on the way to watch birds but only Rob and I seem to be avid birders, the rest seems more passive and only keen on surveys and research, but I can’t really tell at this point.

‘’What will you be doing those two months?’’
 Is the (justifiable) question I get asked a lot, well here is my best explanation.
Rob has been doing field work on Long-tailed Skua’s in Ammarnäs since 2007. Long-tailed Skuas are the size of a small gull and if you just threw up in your mouth a bit reading the word ‘gull’, this is the only definite similarity that you will hear from me besides that the word ‘predator gull’ would be a good way to describe skuas in general to my non birding friends. Long-tailed Skuas are extremely elegant creatures and part of an amazingly interesting family (Stercoridae) which have elaborate moult strategies that are still very poorly understood. Long-tailed Skuas have a dark hood which stops just below the eye, yellowish cheeks and head sides and a very soft grayish lower breast darkening towards the belly. The most stunning thing about them is the tail, from the 12 tail feathers which are usually about the same size in birds the middle pair is strongly elongated, this means that the central tail feather pair is about 10 times as long as the rest of the tail feathers! This makes them even more elegant.
 This year is Robs (the) ‘big moment’, we’re going to attach geologgers to the birds. These devices record light and time, so calculating the amount of daylight tells you on what latitude you are, calculating moment of sunset and sunrise will tell you the longitude. Combining these two numbers gives you a position (with an error of 200km) somewhere on planet earth. All these positions together will give you a map of the winter area of the bird and a track of the migration. That is when they get caught again next year! These devices are fancy but to ask of them to have a direct link to a satellite would be too much. We have to catch 25 Long-tailed Skuas because we have 25 geologgers and want them all up and running! Apparantly Long-tailed Skuas have an extremely high location fidelity so chances are very high that next year there will be some interesting data to recover!
What the three Spanish people are gonna do is still a bit of a mystery to me and they’re not to blame, I am, I can’t speak a word Spanish! From the bits I picked up when they occasionally talk English is that it seems that the entire migration of Golden Plovers is their main point of interest and trapping and banding them will be their primary occupation. They are also keen on catching the insects that Golden Plovers eat, which we are gonna catch using buried drinking cups.

Moerassterns

26 April ontdekte ik een zomerkleed Witwangstern achterin de Eerste Plas te zien vanaf de Oud-Loosdrechtsedijk. De vogel was lang te volgen terwijl deze aan het foerageren was tussen de diverse eilandjes die aan de rand van de Eerste Plas liggen, vrij onverwacht was het dan ook dat toen ik de vogel vanaf de (dichterbij gelegen) Veendijk probeerde te bekijken de vogel verdwenen bleek. Latere zoekacties leverde geen Witwangstern meer op.Deze waarneming triggerde een vogelaar om deze plassen wat meer aandacht te geven en de volgende dag vond hij in de avond maarliefst 2 Witwangsterns op een nabij gelegen plas (Wijde Blik), gaver was het nog dat de vogels in een groep van ruim 1000 Zwarte Sterns en 2000 Dwergmeeuwen zaten, ongekend! Alsof dat nog niet genoeg was zaten er ook nog 4 Witvleugel- en 2 Noordse Sterns op de plas. De Woestijnplevier waar ik op dat moment naar stond te kijken was ineens een stukje minder spectaculair geworden.
Op de 28e stond ik al vroeg bij de Wijde Blik en kon tussen 'slechts' 200 Zwarte Sterns 1 Witvleugelstern vinden, een klein beetje teleurstellend. Langs de Oud-Loosdrechtsedijk zaten 4 3e kalenderjaar en 1 adulte Dwergmeeuw wat mij de kans gaf deze zeer fraaie meeuwtjes eens goed te bestuderen. Helaas kon ik de plas niet in de avond bekijken vanwege andere verplichtingen.
De 29e kon ik in de avond vanaf de Vreelandseweg de groep, die nu uit een kleine 800 Zwarte Sterns, 30 Dwergmeeuwen en 70 Visdief bestond, goed afkijken. Dit leverde 2 Witvleugelsterns op, ze waren uit elkaar te houden doordat bij een van de 2 vogels het wit van de kleinste dekveren veel minder opviel, ook had deze vogel wat uitgebreidere donkere hand- en armpennen. De afstand liet het helaas niet toe de rui en sleet in detail te bestuderen.
Zowel de 30e als de 1e heb ik de Witvleugelstern (de vogel met de intensiever getinte vleugelboeg) maar was de andere onvindbaar. 1 Mei leverde de fietstocht naar de Wijde Blik wel een zeer fraaie 2e kalenderjaar vrouw Roodpootvalk op.

In 2007 deed zich in Mei een zeer fraaie influx van Witvleugelsterns voor waarbij maar liefst 7000+ vogels werden gezien en ook paartjes achterbleven en tot broeden kwamen.
Naast een groep van 19 vogels die overvloog in de Eempolder zag ik ook een fraaie groep van 12 vogels op het Gooimeer foerageren. Deze vogels kwamen geregeld dichtbij en zelfs met mijn (inmiddels overleden) 300mm lens kon ik ze aardig fotograferen.
Anders dan wat men zou vermoeden bij een naam als Witvleugelstern vallen (mij) niet de witte vleugels als eerste op maar juist de zwarte ondervleugeldekveren, deze zorgen voor een fraai contrast wat direct opvalt. Lichtinval wil nog wel eens parten spelen bij bovenvleugels van Zwarte Sterns maar de zwarte ondervleugeldekveren knallen er altijd uit.


Witvleugelstern. Gooimeer, Huizen - 19-5-2007

Witvleugelstern. Gooimeer, Huizen - 19-5-2007
De buitenste 3 handpennen (P10-P8) zijn bruiner dan de rest, anders dan de uitgebreidere donkere handpennen van Zwarte Stern (P10-P6/P5)