September started off the best way possible. You see, on the 8th I came across a Greater short-toed lark (dverlerke). This species is a huge rarity in Norway with just a few recorded each year. The bird was seen at Runde. My colleague Alv Ottar Folkestad and I were on our way to do field work on the island, when the lark suddenly was sitting in the middle of the road. To my knowledge this was the second record of this species at Runde. Normally you have to travel to southern Europe to see the Greater short-toed lark. But sometimes, specially in spring and autumn some birds fly to far and end up as far north as Noway. This was my second record of this southern lark species, just following a bird I saw outside my house at Sandsøya in May last year.
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| Greater short-toed lark (dverglerke) 2cy+, Hammarsneset, Runde 8. September 2016 |
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| Greater short-toed lark (dverglerke) 2cy+, Hammarsneset, Runde 8. September 2016 |
After the lark encounter, there was not much to talk about before the second half of the month. From the 17th and out the month, I came across species like Yellow-browed warbler (gulbrynsanger), Water rail (vannrikse), Jack snipe (kvartbekkasin), Glaucous gull (polarmåke), Yellow wagtail (gulerle) and European stonechat (svartstrupe). They were all seen on the islands were I live, at Sandsøya and Voksa. These islands are located on the northwest coast of Norway just north of Stad.
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| Yellow-browed warbler (gulbrynsanger) 1cy+ Støyle, Sandsøya 21. September 2016 |
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| Yellow-browed warbler (gulbrynsanger) 1cy+ Støyle, Sandsøya 21. September 2016 |
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| Glaucous gull (polarmåke) 1cy/juvenile, Sandshamn, Sandsøya 22. September 2016 |
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| Western marsh-harrier (sivhauk) 1cy/juvenile, Våge, Sandsøya 22. September 2016 |
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| European stonechat (svartstrupe) 1cy female and male, Våge, Sandsøya 25. September 2016 |
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October is one of the best months of the year when we're talking about finding rare birds. With the autumn migration well underway, everything is possible . I didn't really find any extremely rare birds this october, but I still can't complain. I started the month off with catching and ringing the young male European stonechat (svartstrupe) that first had been seen in Våge at Sandsøya on the 22nd of September.
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| European stonechat ssp. hibernans (svartstrupe) 1cy male, Våge, Sandsøya 3. October 2016 |
This was followed by a sighting of what had to be a 1cy/juvenile glaucous gull x herring gull hybird. The gull looked at first glimpse like a good Glaucous gull, but pigmentation inwards on the bill, on primaries and on tail feathers, suggested that there was some herring genes involved here.
This month also produced the highest count of Water rails recorded (vannrikse) at one time on the islands. On the 21st of October I came across six vocal birds, and in addition to those I scared up a seventh bird. They were all seen and heard at Voksa.
In addition to the gull hybrid and the Water rails there was also seen a couple of small groups of European goldfinches (stillits). There was also a small invasion of Long-tailed tits (stjertmeis). Before this autumn I had just seen Long-tailed tits three times on Sandsøya and Voksa. But for a few days in october they seemed to be everywhere. The biggest group of tits I saw had a number of at least 25 individuals. This was probably many family groups joining forces.
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| Long-tailed tit (stjertmeis) 1cy+, Støyle, Sandsøya 15. october 2016 |
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| Long-tailed tit (stjertmeis) 1cy+, Støyle, Sandsøya 15. october 2016 |
Furthermore I heard the islands second ever Gray wagtail (vintererle) when it flew over Støyle at Sandsøya on the 12th of October. I also had a couple of sightings of a adult female Northern harrier (myrhauk) at Voksa on the 18th and the 21st.
The most awaited bird was the Richard pipit (tartarpipleke) that I came across at Voksevegen, the road between Sandsøya and Voksa, on the 21st. This was in fact the only record of this Siberian species in the county of Møre og Romsdal this year. Normally there is at least one or two handful sightings of Richard pipits in Møre og Romsdal each autumn. But not in 2016.
Here is a archive photo of a Richards pipit taken at Ona on the coast of Romsdalen back in 2013.
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| Richard pipit (tartarpiplerke) 1cy, Ona 27. september 2016 |
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November
November started of with me traveling to Ervika on Stad, a one and a half hour drive frome Sandsøya, to take a look at a SIBERIAN STONECHAT (asiasvartstrupe) that was seen there earlier the same day by my good fried Ståle Sætre. I got a couple of short glimpses of the eastern rarity before a European Stonechat (svartstrupe), its western relative, managed to scare it away. It didn't look like it wanted company...
The Siberian stonechat is a huge rarity in Norway with not many tens recorded in total. This was the second record of this species in the county of Sogn og Fjordane. The first record came a few days earlier on the 23rd of October at Bulandet in Askvoll municipality.
And now when we're talking about stonechats, on the 22nd of October i located a female European stonechat (svartstrupe) in Sandsvågen at Sandsøya. This was the third stonchat sighting at Sandsøya in the autumn of 2016. The bird stayed in the same area, and was seen on the 4th, 13th and 30th of November. After the 30th of November I haven't been able to locate the bird, but it probably will try to spend the winter somewhere on the west coast of Norway. In fact it might still be on the island.
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| European stonechat (svartstrupe) 1cy+ female, Sandsvågen, Sandsøya 3. november 2016 |
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December
This is usually the quietest month of the year. But this year that wasn't the case at all. It all started in the morning on the 12th of December. I came out of the shower, and was just a few seconds to late to answer the call i got on my cell phone. It was for me, a unknown number, so I looked it up. It was one of the owners of the fish landing site at Sandshamn. I instantly thought, before I called back, that they had to be calling either about a injured seagull or a European storm petrel (havsvale). It showed itself to be the latter. You see in late November and early December, the last of our storm-petrel chicks leave their nests. It's these young and inexperienced newly fledged birds that have a tendency to end up stranded on land. Often in combination with bad weather and strong winds. This time that was not the case. The night before it was found the weather couldn't have been better. It was a cold night with moonlight and no winds. After I talked to the woman that called about the petrel, I quickly drove to pick it up. As soon I got my hands on it I could feel that the bird was quite heavy and had to be healthy. And it didn't look like it was injured in any way either. After taking it back home I put it one a scale to see how heavy it in fact was. The scale stopped at 27,73 grams. This is above the average weight of 25 grams of that of an adult bird. That meant that I was correct, this young storm-petrel was in very good condition. The only thing I could do now was to wait for it to get dark and then to release it back into the wild.
Storm-petrels are nearly completely useless on land, and as a result of this they only come to shore after dark. This means that it's nearly, if not completely impossible to get a storm-petrel to fly on land when it's still daylight outside. The young bird in this case probably got attracted by small pieces of fish around the fish landing site, and then later on got mesmerized by the floodlights lighting up the key where it was found. If it somehow got stranded on the key just as the light of day was coming on, its instincts could have stopped it from flying off.. If it had stayed there throughout the day it probably would have been killed by a predator of some kind, either a cat, a crow etc. But luckily it was located before it came to that.
I placed the storm-petrel in cardboard box so that it was disturbed as little as possible. Just before dark I ringed the bird, so that if the bird is sighted again it will be possible to identify it. After it got a ring on its foot I took the cardboard box with the storm-petrel inside, and drove it all the way out to the westernmost part of Sandsøya. I could not drive all the way, so I had to walk the last stretch. After arriving the release spot, I took it out of the box and placed it on top my hand. As soon as I let go, it started flapping its wings, still sitting om my and. And after a few seconds it flew off strong. Hopefully this bird will live a long and good life. I have at least given it all the possibilities to do so...
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| European storm-petrel (havsvale) 1cy, Støyle, Sandsøya 12. december 2016 |
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| European storm-petrel (havsvale) 1cy, Støyle, Sandsøya 12. december 2016 |
The day after I released the storm-petrel I drove around the islands to see if I couldn't find a cool bird of some kind. And that is just what I did. Right next to the road that goes between the islands, Voksevegen, on the south side of Sandsøya, I came across, a for me, new species. A female King eider (praktærfugl). This high arctic duck is a really rare bird in southern-Norway. And as said, for me this was the first encounter with this beautiful bird. This became my 225th bird species seen at Sandsøya og Voksa.
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| King eider (praktærfugl) 1cy+ female, Voksevegen, Sandsøya 13. December 2016 Here with a White-winged scoter (sjøorre) to the left. |
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| King eider (praktærfugl) 1cy+ female, Voksevegen, Sandsøya 13. December 2016 |
The day after, on the 14th, I went for a hat-trick. Initially I intended to get better photos of the female King eider, but it was nowhere to be seen. It probably was on migration and just rested here for a short while before moving on.
So when I didn't find the eider I went for a drive around the islands to see if I once again couldn't come up with something new. And I actually did. On the southern side of Sandsøya, at a place called Sande, i came across a group of Eurasian curlews (storspove). This is a usual sight even at this time of year, because some remain here throughout the winter. Among these curlews there was something smaller hiding. Yes, smaller indeed. The bird that I'm talking about was a Whimbrel (småspove). This is not a rare bird in Norway, but in winter it's extremely rare. There's just under 10 winter records of this species in Norway in total.
The Whimbrel was once again sighted on the 21st of december, a few hundred meters further west on the island.
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| Whimbrel (småspove), Sande, Sandsøya 14. December 2016 Here with a Eurasian curlew to the left. |
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| Whimbrel (småspove), Sande, Sandsøya 14. December 2016 |
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| Whimbrel (småspove), Kinna, Sandsøya 21. December 2016 |
But I wasn't completely finished with that. Just about a week before Christmas a lot of Greater white-fronted geese (tundragjess) started to show up many places throughout Norway. On the 18th of December there was seen a group of 103 birds at the island of Aukra, just outside Molde. On the same day there was also seen a group of 65 birds at Giske, a small island outside Ålesund. This meant that there was quite a lot of Greater white-fronted geese around. And on the 21st of December it was my turn. When I arrived Voksa, on the ferry, i saw a group of geese flying and landing on a field just a bit further northwest on the island. This was a group of 41 Greater white-fronted geese (tundragås), and a single Barnacle goose (hvitkinngås).
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| Greater white-fronted goose ssp. albifrons (tundragås), Voksa 21. December 2016B |
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