Daniel´s birdblog

Great Grey Owls haven´t had a great year in central Sweden so far. But there are some pockets with voles in the landscape that attract Owls. We are blessed to have some of these gorgeous birds in our area this year.

The cold start of the swedish spring tipped over to warmer weather with easter. Suddenly birds became very active on the Grouse leks. Now the lekking season for Capercaillies seems to be peaking in the central parts of Sweden. These pictures where taken by Simon Green from a hide on our lekking site in the Black River Valley the other day. This morning there was again very good activity on the spot. No females reported here yet, but on other sites mating season is in full swing.

The last week several Great Grey Owls have appeared in the central parts of Sweden. On this latitude they tend to be very invisible in wintertime, absent most of the time from known breeding areas. With the warm spell we´ve had the last weeks they suddenly became visible again. It´s not unusual that they appear when the snow thaws and they can find prey more easily on the open grass areas and meadows. Remains to see if this will be a good breeding season or not around here. We don´t see an abundance of voles yet.

I witnessed a pair of White-tailed (Sea) Eagles hovering low over the water surface of Lake Fläcksjön. They stayed over the same point so long I realized they must be hunting something in the water below them. They took turns in swooping down to attack the prey. The wind was strong at the moment so they seemed to have a hard time, but they were ever so persistent. After several minutes and seemingly endless attempts, one of the birds came up with a duck in it´s talons. They had managed to exhaust the bird til it finally got possible to grab when it re-surfaced. I´ve seen this before with Coot and Great-crested Grebe for prey. This time it looked like a Mallard. Sorry the poor picture quality but the documentary aspects justifies!

The Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) is one of several passerine species that increase in Sweden and are pushing up their distribution range from the south, colonizing new habitats and areas in the country. In our (central) parts of Sweden however, the Chiffchaff is not yet a regular breeding bird (yet) and in fact not a bird I see many times a year at all. We are namely mostly exposed to the northern population on migration. Mid september is when they turn up on their way south and during a relatively short period of a few weeks they can be enjoyed, often spotted by their distinctive song. At this time practically all Willow Warblers have gone south.  Today I saw my first Chiffchaff for the autumn. It flitted around in one of my big apple trees in the garden and I was surprised to get a few images of this constantly moving little bird. I later saw a Bluethroat as well but the Chiffchaff was the bird of the day for me.

Hjälstaviken not far from Uppsala is one of the major staging areas for Geese in central Sweden, especially during autumn migration. The season has just started but already last week 4.000 Bean Geese, 8.000 Greylag Geese and 7.000 Barnacle Geese where counted. The minorities where the 25 Lesser White-fronts and 4 (!) Pink-feet. Add to that 4.100 Common Cranes and you can just begin to sense the noise and sheer spectacle when all these birds come into to roost in the wetland at night. The Barnacles are the most tame, the Beanies the most shy.

Yesterday the first Honey Buzzards were seen starting their migration from the breeding grounds in the Black River Valley. They are among the first raptors to start to go south on their migration to tropical Africa. The adults start first (see the different length of some secondaries) and the juveniles will start in a few weeks time. Most adults leave Sweden before september have started.

The Peregrines in the harbour of Västerås are still the only reproducing pair in the whole province of central Sweden´s lowlands (a region of three counties; Västmanland, Närke and Uppland). Now their 3 chicks are finally flying (a few days later than normally). They are over 40 days old all of them, two females and one male). I got the pleasure to witness and photograph one of the first flights of one of the female chicks.

Little Gulls seem to increase as a breeding bird in the east central parts of Sweden. These birds are normally not very easy to come close to, but there is a point where they sometimes come in to feed on flying insects closer to land and during the right circumstances. I was lucky to catch one of these moments in May this year and here´s a sample of pictures of these smart looking birds. The bird with some black on the primaries is probably a 3k bird, not fully adult.

Finally a really nice, sunny, calm day, even a bit hot. We went to Asköviken for a traditional spring picnic to enjoy the first Blue Anemones, Butterflies (Brimstone and Small tortoiseshell), look for Adders and birds around the wetland. We only found one adder (male) - less than usual, Marsh Harriers and Ospreys had arrived and the Black-headed Gull colony was loud and lively as it should be. An adult White-tailed Eagle soared just above us for a while and flushed all the Geese on the flooded pasture. The biggest surprise was a largish bat that flew around in broad daylight by the watch-tower. Probably a Common Noctule Bat (Nyctalus noctula) - Större brunfladdermus in swedish.

A male Three-toed Woodpecker has been reported infrequently during the winter from the south parts of Björnön (Bear island) nature reserve just outside Västerås. It´s not a regular bird in this (more deciduous) part of the area, but there´s a good infestation of bark beetles here and a good stand of dead or dying spruce trees. Our visitors from Belgium and England got lucky to see it really close feeding low down on trunks. Even I got a few pictures I´m reasonably happy with.

Look who popped in on the Goshawk feeding station on the night of Christmas eve!

Our new feeding station for Rough-legged Buzzard (possibly the first of it´s kind?) keeps working fine. This (seemingly) adult female is probably the same bird that held a winter territory on the spot last winter, just as we were building the hide. Yesterday we saw it hover over the grass areas, hunting for voles, after having fed itself lunch from the bait we put out. Since Short-eared Owl was seen the week before, there´s probably some voles around. Great Grey Shrike was seen nearby yesterday as well. Indications for a good winter season. First three pics by Simon Green.

A full day in the Goshawk hide yesterday was very exciting. We first saw a Short-eared Owl as we installed photographer Niclas Ahlberg from Stockholm in the new Rough-legged Buzzard hide. Then we - me and my 23-year-old son Simon Green - put ourselves in the Goshawk hide. Eventually a juvenile female appeared and spent some 40 minutes feeding. A short visit from her mother added to the experience but didn´t produce any pictures. At the end a Pygmy Owl whistled at dusk. A great day to be one of the darkest of the year. Simon got these nice pics of the juv Goshawk.

Our new feeding station for Rough-legged Buzzards (and photo hide) got a kick-start to the season when swiss photographer Pascal Favre visited us and got some really nice pictures of this beautiful and showy raptor. To our knowledge this might be the only feeding operation for this northern raptor in the world! Welcome to visit Birdsafarisweden in the Black River Valley for some Winter raptor photography! See more of Pascal´s excellent work from his week in sweden on his own webpage http://www.pascalfavre.com/SuèdeSweden/2017/

It´s not often that Northern lights/ Aurora borealis gets documented in our area. Yesterday there was an alert out that it could be possible to see over big parts of Sweden. Luckily Margot and Roger Cattin from Germany where out and got some pictures over Lake Gussjön.

Since about a year back, theres´s been reports of tracks and droppings from Wolves in the Black River area again. There are at least 6 wolf territories in the county Västmanland, but all are west of us. This is the first time a wolf has been documented in the area for several years. Pictures by Alf Johansson (5) and Ulf Broberg (1-4).

Autumn is a great time to photograph Nutcrackers in the Black River Valley. They are busy collecting hazel nuts for the winter and happily take the peanuts we offer as well. The individual in silhouette (bottom picture) is aberrant with a ring of red, bare skin around the eyes, and an unusually long lower mandible, creating an underbite impression - a bit like a Skimmer in fact - a "Nutskimmer" perhaps! ;) and is also extremely unshy. Some experts have given it a diagnosis. I´m not so shure.

A Robin-like bird jumping on the side of a bicycle track in central Sweden is usually most likely to be…just a Robin. However this time of the year (late August - early September) it isn´t at all rare to find a Bluethroat. Carl von Linné gave it the scientific name Luscinia svecica, back in 1758, meaning "the Swedish Nightingale". It still fills me with a very old-fashioned nationalistic pride when telling people this!

For the 2.nd summer I found Hornet Moths (Sesia apiformis) in my garden in Fläckebo. These creatures look like wasps or hornets but are in fact Moths in disguise. They lay their eggs under the bark of poplar trees. It can take them up to three years to develop from egg, through larvae and pupae to full imago. This is the third species of Clearwing Moths I have encountered in the garden this summer.