zondag 29 mei 2011

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:

donderdag 26 mei 2011

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 R
ø
dby  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 2nd 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.

woensdag 4 mei 2011

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)