Three-toes steal the show

2/09/2017

A very busy day for the group today.

We were out for 4:30 this morning, with nets open soon after at our Nyrud site. Quickly we soon realised we may be in for quiet morning as bird activity had died down on yesterday. We believe this may be due to light northerly winds and clear skies, which may have caused a mass exodus. However of the birds caught, we were again heartened to find a number of migrant species, with good numbers of Bluethroat still present within the Pasvik valley. This included 5 birds caught and ringed by the time we had to leave at around 10am.

Without a doubt though, the highlight for most of the members of the team occurred when a small flock of Three-toed Woodpeckers found their way into our ‘woodland’ mist nets. This was a new bird in the hand for the majority of the group and therefore proved quite exciting for us all.

The party of 3 consisted of all adult birds, with 2 stunning males. For one of the group, having seen their first only a few minutes before in a different area, it probed quite exciting!

They were stunning!

Later in the session, a 4^th bird was caught, a juvenile, which proved a nice comparison to the earlier adults. To put this in context, in the previous 5 years of the project, the various groups have only caught 3 Three-toed Woodpeckers, so to catch 4 within a couple of hours was noteworthy for the project!

Species	Total
Reed Bunting	7
Bluethroat	5
Three-toed Woodpecker	4
Willow Warbler	3
Willow Tit	3
	22

This afternoon, the team were invited to attend a conference at the NIBIO Svanhovd centre where the team were invited to speak alongside our partners Biotope about the Varanger ringing project and the community outreach and educational objectives of the project. A very interesting afternoon listening to a number of lectures about the future of conservation and tourism to this spectacular region. A huge thank you goes to all those involved.

4 Elk were observed today, with 1 crossing the river into Russia at Nyrud and 3 huge males at Skrøytnesmyra viewing platform.  Here, a number of Cranes flew around giving great views, their calls echoing across the mire. An Osprey spent the morning fishing along the Pasvik river at Nyrud, giving some decent views. A number of Great Grey Shrikes were seen today, with a minimum of 6 seen.

With such an unusually patterned wing, it may be hard to judge the species on this photo. So what is it?