Day 17 - Buntings and Lazarus the Eagle

Today was the open invitation for people to come on down to the ringing station to see us and hopefully some birds. Because of that it has been a long ringing day with nets open at 05.00 and closed at 15.00. The conditions today were not too bad but the easterly wind was somewhat unpredictable, at times making various lines of nets look like tea clipper sails one minute and then dropping dead the next. Apart from that it was relatively warm and very bright.

Apart from a few quiet spells the stream of birds from the net rides were steady and the wader nets, unfurled in the afternoon caught a handful of waders including a Curlew Sandpiper. Unfortunately the Purple Sandpiper spotted early in the day did not come down to join in the fun.

Arctic Redpoll

We had three Arctic Redpoll come through the nets in the afternoon.

We picked up on juvenile and two excellent adult examples which are shown here.,

What were also plentiful today were Lapland Buntings with a total of 19 new birds ringed. At one stage after a round on the marsh 6 were ringed in the same sitting.

An abundance of Lapland Buntings

  We also ringed another new Little Bunting.

This brings the number during the trip to two but with some figures from Anders and some convenient statistics it seems that we have made up around 6% of the total Norwegian ringing records.







After some lunch at the site and a snack of reindeer heart we met some of the local community who came down to see us in action. It was fun to let the children see the birds and to release them as well as speak to the parents and get a bit more insight into life around Varangerbotn and neighbouring communities.

Today's "And Finally" story has to be Lazarus the Sea Eagle who was spotted with his pal by Ferg earlier in the day. The two birds were way out into the fjord on a small island and decided to fish. So Lazarus dropped onto his fish quite nicely and then just sat in the water. He was clearly pleased with his catch and refused to let go and so gradually became more and more water logged as the seconds then minutes ticked by. He was watched anxiously through the scopes from the ringing station for a good fifteen minutes as he held onto the sizeable fish and flapped hopelessly in an attempt to lift out of the water. Anders and Tormod told us of similar instances where eagles have got into trouble and been rescued by fishermen but this was not going to happen here. Eventually the poor bird disappeared apart from the odd splash and was written off and we had to clear some birds that had come in. Then Tormod, scanning along the far island, suddenly spotted Lazarus "swimming" to the shore, complete with fish, and dragging himself out and onto dry land.

Had we all been more emotional types we would have cheered but as it was someone complained that all the hot water had been used and there was no more coffee so normal service was quickly resumed. It was an amazing sight though.

Today's totals are being compiled at the moment and will be posted later but a rough total looks like around 120 new birds with a good number of new Bluethroats arriving as well as the fantastic bunting numbers.