Barn Owls

Summer is well on in Scotland with most birds feeding large young and many are fledged. One species which is often a little later to breed is the Barn Owl and today I went with my brother Rab to a barn owl friendly farmer, Chris's barn. The nest is is a box placed for the owls on top of a stack of round hay bales and there were three chicks and a dud egg in the box. The chicks were a perfect age for ringing.

Barn owls have long pointed faces, not round faces like other owls such as Tawny or Great Grey. The chicks are very docile, almost falling over in a sort of drowsiness trance while being handled. And they have black eyes, none of those piercing yellow or orange irises like Short-Eared or Long-Eared Owls.

Last Day

 Redpoll on nest in willow shrub

Today was the last day of our trip to north Norway. We rounded it off with catching and ringing another Broad-Billed Sandpiper and a brood of Wood Sandpiper chicks.

But I thought I should mention the passerines which nest here in the arctic. Here are a couple of shots of a Redpoll on her nest set in a low willow bush. The nest is a fine mesh of willow down and grasses, lined with a thick wad of Willow Grouse feathers - the white ones moulted by the grouse as they turn from white to brown plumage in spring. A wonderfully warm nest for these high latitudes.

  Redpoll nest and eggs

And as a last parting shot here is a fledgling Hawk Owl, one of a brood of four which we came across today.





Ringing Broad-Billed Sandpipers

Today we were ringing Broad-Billed Sandpipers. This whole trip to north Norway has been focused on the study of these birds and other arctic-breeding waders, especially Jack Snipe. And the study has been ongoing for several years, led by my brother Rab, Skitts to the birders who know him, and Karl-Birger Strann of the Norsk institutt for naturforskning in Tromso. I have been a mere helper on this trip and am grateful to them both for a great experience, and to Ed Duthie and Harry Scott who have helped on this project before and have been a great lead on the birds of the area. All have made this an excellent excursion.

 Adult Broad-Billed Sandpiper marked with a unique

combination of colour rings for ready identification

     in the field wherever it is seen on the breeding area

 or in its wintering grounds.

 The chicks are incrediibly well camouflaged, their

white speckled down mimicing the water glistening

on the waterlogged vegetation where they live in the arctic mires.

And they are tiny, all four sit easily within the palm of a hand.

Mountain heath

We were up on the  North Norwegian mountain heath, mire and woodland today, in a very remote place close to the Finnish border. Wonderful light after a shower of rain.

A dunlin stands on a mossy hummock watching over his chicks.

A grand old mountain birch tree, probably hundreds of years old, and grown in a natural twisted form, unlike most of the trees close to roads or easy access where they grow in a close coppiced form.

 Intricate tapestries of lichens covered the ground

Long-Tailed Skuas

 Long-Tailed Skua, showing the fine long tail streamers

It is not only the owls which are breeding well during the current peak in small mammal numbers. Long-Tailed Skuas are also cashing in on the abundant lemmings. These seem to have peaked in numbers during winter, but the numbers are still high enough for the birds to rear their chicks.



 Adult skuas defend their chicks by stooping at any intruder

A family party of Long-Tailed Skuas at the nest.Handsome birds in flight and on the ground.