Finland's owls

One of the main attractions for wildlife enthusiasts and photographers visiting Finland is the range of boreal owls that can be seen in the country. In late spring and early summer these birds are breeding, which makes locating them a difficult task. Although it's possible to locate some of the more conspicuous species with a lot of luck and graft, using a local guide is the most sensible option as others such as Great Grey and Tengmalms are otherwise more or less impossible to see. We were indebted to Harri Hölttä for his help in seeing Ural, Tengmalm's and Great Grey Owls around Joensuu; further north we were fortunate enough to locate our own Pygmy and Hawk Owls.

Ural Owl
Single birds seen at two different nestboxes around Joensuu.

Great Grey Owl
Two nests visited (Parikkala and Joensuu), both revealing little more than the head of their respective occupants.

Tengmalm's Owl
A single individual at a nest box west of Joensuu.

Pygmy Owl
A vocal bird showed well to the south of Kajaani in the early hours of 25th.

Hawk Owl
Single individuals seen at two sites to the south of Taivalkoski, one of which proved extremely confiding.

Japan 2015 day 10: Rausu and Notsuke

28 December 2015

Mick was still struggling with his sleeping plans a little and had woken up at 05:00, recording a Blakiston's Fish Owl again at the pond shortly afterwards. By the time Rich and I were up it was getting light and the owl show was over, so we indulged in a rather hearty breakfast. A short walk in the area afterwards produced a pair of Brown Dippers and female Teal on the stream plus an abundance of Jays as well as Willow and Marsh Tits.

Hokkaido Red Squirrel

From here we drove east to the coast, once again finding the roads generally empty and snow-free, making journey times pleasingly quick. We opted to bird the harbours north to Rausu but generally found them to be fairly quiet: Kunbetsu held six Black Scoters, Azabucho a seemingly injured Pacific Diver and Matsunoricho a Red-necked Grebe and 200 roosting Pelagic Cormorants. Each harbour held the ubiquitous Harlequins, which also littered the sheltered inshore waters right along the coast.

The day you become tired of drake Harlequins is the day you've become tired of life

Arriving at Rausu, we found the harbour relatively devoid of birds with just a handful of Glaucous and Kamchatka Gulls of any note. With that it was back south towards the Notsoke peninsula - a long peninsula shaped like a skeleton's arm, jutting several kilometres out in to the Sea of Okhotsk.

Adult Glaucous Gull, Rausu 

Adult Kamchatka Gull, Rausu

Notsuke is a spectacularly bleak place, very much reminiscent of a cross between Spurn and Dungeness. There are very few people here in winter - the fishing sheds are boarded up and boats hauled up on land, many falling appart. Countless piles of fishing equipment (nets, buoys, cages) in varying states of disrepair scatter the landscape, adding to the rustic feel, and the silence only serves to accentuate the place as a true wilderness.

The opportunistic scavenging of several Red Foxes was quite fitting in such surroundings, and one or two of these were almost as tame as - yet altogether more pleasing on the eye than - London's urban foxes.

Red Fox

Notsuke is a brilliant place for birding - though at first it seemed quiet, it soon became apparent that the ice-free north side of the peninsula supported many thousands of seaduck - mainly Black Scoters but some sizeable rafts of Scaup and Red-breasted Merganser too. Among these were smaller numbers of Long-tailed Duck, Stejneger's Scoter (c.50) and tens of Red-throated Divers.

It took a while before we saw our first eagles, but we quickly notched up 30+ Steller's after the first appeared on roadside posts. Some allowed a reasonably close approach and consequently a few half-decent shots were taken.

Smaller numbers of White-tailed were also present and small groups of Glaucous Gulls patrolled the coastline - in total upwards of 50 were seen. Though we found a nice flock of 24 Snow Buntings, a walk along the peninsula in the lighthouse area didn't produce the hoped-for Asian Rosy Finch.

Glaucous Gulls, Notsuke 

A scan of the frozen bay to the south produced evocative views of several Steller's sitting out on the ice.

With the sun dropping fast we decided to return north to Rausu, where we were staying. A quick stop in Shibetsu harbour late afternoon left us kicking ourselves that we hadn't visited slightly earlier. With the tide in the sea was almost at eye-level from the quay, giving a fantastic angle on the assembled ducks. Having lost the sun to the horizon, it was galling to have drake Harlequins to within 10 metres - an opportunity missed without doubt!

Back at Rausu we tucked in to yet another fantastic meal and I took a dip in the onsen before heading round to Washi no Yado on the north side of town. It didn't take long before a Blakiston's Fish Owl appeared to begin fishing on the stream, and over the course of the next few hours we had at least three sightings - including one memorable moment when two birds were seen together in the stream, hissing and interacting with each other. Just brilliant!

Blakiston's Fish Owl - an image-filled blog post on these idols of Hokkaido will appear at a later date

Japan 2015 day nine: Hokkaido's north coast

27 December 2015

We awoke to find that there had been another dusting of snow overnight and a selection of common species were feeding avidly at the guesthouse feeders during breakfast. A White-tailed Eagle flew over as we left - the first of many eagles we were to see throughout the day.

After enjoying excellent views of Lake Kussharo from the north, the road to Abashiri soon produced the first Steller's Sea Eagles (and a White-tailed) along the route. The scenery along this road is absolutely stunning, as it is around much of northern Hokkaido, and the mulitude of spectacular wintry vistas is a highlight in itself.

Great vista from the road north of Lake Kussharo

There had clearly been a fair bit more snow on Hokkaido's north coast and it was a few degrees colder here to boot. We were pleased to find six Falcated Ducks, including four drakes, on the river in Abashiri - easily our best views of the trip of this stunning duck. There were also numerous Goldeneye and Greater Scaup here.

I'd done some genning in the days leading up to our Hokkaido visit and established that two desirable species had been seen recently at nearby Cape Notoro. The approach road to the lighthouse immediately produced one of these - a cracking Northern Shrike hunting from roadside wires and seemingly unbothered by the north-westerly gale battering the Cape. Though annual on Hokkaido it is rather rare and isn't something visitors should expect to see, so was a pleasing bonus.

sibiricus Northern Shrike at Cape Notoro

I think it was fair to say the Cape was the coldest place that I've ever set foot in my life. Temperatures were sub-zero but the wind made birding (and even standing) extremely hard work, despite several layers of clothing and barely any exposed skin. Needless to say we couldn't find our other target species, Asian Rosy Finch, but both Steller's and White-tailed Eagles drifted by, seemingly nonplussed by the conditions. A distant hovering buzzard was unfortunately an Eastern rather than Rough-legged. Harlequins were abundant offshore (well in to three figures) while two Stejneger's Scoters were the first I'd seen since the Irish bird and a few Glaucous Gulls drifted by. A single alcid picked out transpired to be a Brünnich's Guillemot.

Cape Notoro

Returning to Abashiri port, we found that the fishing fleet was in for the winter and gull numbers were low, though a 1cy Glaucous x Glaucous-winged often showed well alongside a pure Glaucous and several Harlequins also came quite close.

1cy Glaucous (top) and Glaucous x Glaucous-winged Gulls, Abashiri Port

Slaty-backed close-ups

Moving slightly east to Lake Tofotsu 'swan park', we found the lake almost entirely frozen but the ice-free outflow supported good concentrations of birds. It had started to snow again and three Steller's Sea Eagles looked impressive stood on the ice while four Red-crowned Cranes were a surprise. Among the wildfowl were several Harlequins and a few Goosanders as well as the ubiquitous Whooper Swans. A Red-necked Grebe was also present but we could not find the vagrant Cackling Goose that had been photographed here on Christmas Day. A highlight was feeding Pintail out the hand - the poor things were visibly shivering and frankly I'm at a loss as to why they attempt to brave the bitter winters up here when they could simply fly south ...

We checked a smaller frozen lake back towards Abashiri but the goose was not among the 100 Whooper Swans there. Two of the world's most handsome ducks, a drake Smew and a drake Harlequin, were found alongside each other at the outflow there was one of the memorable sights of the trip.

Perhaps the two most beautiful ducks in the world? Sadly they never glanced around at the same time.

As we continued east towards Shari the weather improved and the final couple of hours of daylight turned out bright. A good selection of gulls at the river mouth included the highest concentration of Glaucous we'd seen so far, with at least 15 among the Slaty-backs. Wildfowl included around 100 Scaup and smaller numbers of Wigeon.

Adult Glaucous with other gulls at Shari Port

We were conscious of the time, knowing we needed to be at Yoroushionsen for dusk. One thing we'd learnt was that our Sat Nav predicting much longer journey times than in real life and we made it to Yuyado-Daiichi in good time, putting our bags down and enjoying a coffee as it went dark.

We couldn't quite believe the script here. Watching the owner stock a small pond with fish less than ten metres from where we were sat, separated by nothing more than a pane of glass, it seemed scarcely believable that the world's largest owl might be enticed by this setup. Yet that's exactly what happened some time before 17:15, when a Blakiston's Fish Owl emerged from the darkness, somewhat shocking us with its sheer size as it arrived at the pond and began to fish. It performed extremely well for several minutes and not long after was replaced by a second bird, giving equally as incredible views. One of the birds (apparently the male) has a damaged left eye and has been regular here for over 10 years!

We enjoyed a few more showings (one of which interrupted our fantastic evening meal) before the Owls seemingly shut up shop for the evening; after the last sighting at 20:30 we did not get another sniff by midnight and so retired for the night.

Burrowing Owl

Ever since I was a small child I have wanted to see Burrowing Owl. This individual, seen along Robinson Road to the south of Davis was our only bird of the trip. It was quite amusing watching it crouching down in fields to avoid detection - something that worked effectively, as it was pretty difficult to pick up

We also had a flock of 50 Lark Sparrows along the road, along with Prairie Falcon, Tricoloured Blackbirds and Ferruginous Hawks.

Morocco Trip Report, June/July 2012

You can view and download my Morocco trip report at your will below:



Apologies for the mix-up last night; I've moved the PDF to scribd which seems to solve the problem. Hope it comes in handy to others on future visits!

Morocco, 24th June - 1st July

Late on Sunday evening, I arrived back from a typically exhausting trip to Morocco. I've visited the country twice before (April 09 and July 10), although still hadn't seen several of the more localized species which occur within its boundaries. Accompanying me were Dan Pointon and Will Soar, who had both visited on one occasion previously.

Prior to our visit, I had targeted seven species and a further two subspecies which I had not been previously. Just two of these species were not observed; details of each can be found below. If anyone wants further details (and GPS) for these or other species, please do not hesitate to email me.

*Marsh Owl: three birds seen on the west side of Merja Zerga during the evening of 25th.
*Double-spurred Francolin: three seen in flight c.2km north of Ben Slimane during the morning of 26th (JJ only), while at least two were heard at the traditional spot at Sidi Yahya on 1st July.
*Fulvous Babbler: remarkably, I had not seen this species on either of my two prior Moroccan visits despite searching. Once again, they proved relatively difficult to pin down, although we eventually located a family party of at least six individuals on the western outskirts of Errachidia.
*African Desert Warbler: several birds were seen in the 'usual' wadi c.5km along the track to Cafe Yasmina, by the 'Yasmina 9km' sign.
*[Western] Mourning Wheatear: a first-summer male was located in the hills c.14km west of Tinghir on 28th. This has been a regular spot for sightings during spring 2012. A male was also seen distantly in the gorge c.2km west of Imiter on the same day.
*[Pharoah Eagle Owl]: although there was plenty of faeces distributed all over the regular sites west of Rissani, we failed to find the species there. We also failed at the Mourning Wheatear site above, although finally connected with a single adult in the gorge south of the main road c.2km west of Imiter on 28th.
*[Saharan Olivaceous Warbler]: we found this striking race of Eastern Olivaceous Warbler to be fairly common across the southeast of the country. First seen in the Ziz Valley north of Errachidia on 26th, we also found plenty in the lush wadi c.20km west of Errachidia, as well as near Rissani. They were also abundant in tamarisks at Barrage El-Mansour, Ouazarzate at dawn on 29th, with many singing.
African Dunn's Lark: we could not locate the regular bird(s) at the Desert Warbler site; presumably they disperse following the breeding season.
Egyptian Nightjar: despite intense searching of the wadis north of Auberge le Tresor, we could not locate any birds. Striking a piece of rotten luck, we found that the hotel at Derkaoua (quoted as almost guaranteed at dawn) was closed, and no nightjars were found in the area.

Adult Marsh Owl

First-summer male Western Mourning ('Maghreb') Wheatear...

Three studies of adult Pharaoh Eagle Owl: surely a good species?

Little Owl in the early morning light at Barrage el-Mansour, Ouazarzate.

Temminck's Lark east of Boumalne du Dades. It appears to have been a great year for the species.

Crested Coots enjoying some of Pointon's biscuit supply at Dayet Aoua.

Three Royal Terns on the Oued Souss at dusk on 29th.

Record shot of one of the many Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters seen in the southeast of the country.

 

Saharan Striped Polecat