Favorites and finale

In the first couple of days Nigel Redman told us that, at the end of the trip, he would ask each trip participant to list their top five favorite birds seen on the trip.  So, we should be thinking of this as the days went by. I think this may be a Rockjumper tradition and I like it for big trips like Finland and Norway.  

My list:

5.  Tied:  Ortolan Bunting and Red-throated Pipit

4.  Smew 

3.  Boreal Owl

2.  Dotterel 

1.  King Eider

I don't know what the final group wide tally was, but I do remember that the first place bird was King Eider.  I'll add the rest when the trip report becomes available.  After writing all of this, I might have switched places with Dotterel and King Eider on my list.  But it doesn't matter. Both are great birds. 

My favorite photos

Singing an aria to the sea.  Puffins doing cute things - impossible!   

Dotterel on nest in the middle of the tundra (in photo center and slightly to the right).

This male Dotterel is here on Kaunispää Fell, a vast tundra landscape, by himself to incubate his eggs and raise his young.  If I understood Anttu correctly, this was his third breeding season in this location.  The further north we traveled, we saw many birds migrating to their arctic breeding sites, many to Siberia, but this Dotterel was my favorite.  The distance he flew to get here and his success reminds me of the hard lives that birds have.  I'll be checking in with Anttu next year to see if he is back for another year.

My "best" photos

When I returned from the trip and downloaded my photos, I immediately deleted about two-thirds of them.  I continue to enjoy all that I kept for one reason or another - especially those that I included in my blog entries.  But, honestly, it seemed to me that none of the photos were really good.  There was always something - distance, lighting, angle, camera settings, being rushed, whatever it might have been - that seemed to thwart a really good image.  I will probably always be challenged by my deficient digital camera IQ.  I did select four photos, three of them already included in prior entries and one additional that I didn't have a place for.

I've always wanted a photo like this, but never thought it would be a Boreal Owl!

Things lined up quite well for this Red-throated Pipit photo.

Photo of Common Eider and King Eider swimming together is very appealing.

 

Bright and colorful photo of the Eurasian Wigeon (Mareca penelope), a handsome duck.

Our biggest miss

Every trip has a few.  For this trip I would say that our biggest miss was the Ring Ouzel (Turdus torquatus).  In the Norway "cap" it seemed we were always in Ring Ouzel habitat.   Anttu did callback in several different areas.  Even I, to get out of the van that was protecting me, (and at the same time driving me crazy), from the driving wind while the others were standing around doing a sea watch, went walking up the road and began doing my own callback for the Ring Ouzel.  No luck. But wouldn't it have been something if one had responded?  My escape was a nice little getaway for me, even if just to stretch my legs.  Later the van came along and picked me up.  Getting back into the van, I felt like a re-captured prisoner, only not in as much trouble.  On the whole though, we didn't miss much.    

For anyone interested, here is the trip report:  Finland and Norway eBird trip report.  All of the eBird entries were compiled by our Finnish guide, Antero Topp, with Finnature Touring.

Addendum on 07/08/2025

Why wait until next year to check in with Anttu about the success of the Dotterel's nest?  I emailed him yesterday with two questions.  This morning I received his reply as follows:

1. I think it was successful because the male was still hatching in mid June when the last Finnature group visited the site. Hatching time can be 28 days so I don't know absolutely sure what was the result, but it has been successfully on the eggs already for about 20 days so it looks really promising. Of course the chicks have to survive many days before they can fly and I haven't heard anything about the chicks. Male was ringed on 07 Jul 2019 very close to where the nest was also this year.  It was only a few days old and it was still in the nest.

2. Yes you can use my photo.

Anttu's photo colors are much richer and the Dotterel's face is clearer.

Anttu writes that the Dotterel was ringed (banded) on 07 July 2019, making him now six years old.  This is older than I had originally thought.  The miles he has flown!  He has shown remarkable nest site fidelity.

Addendum on 07/15/2025

I'll be honest and say that, no doubt, from time-to-time I'll return to these blog entries and tweak them here or there.  But this is the end. Assembling my photos to tell the story and writing the narratives - 23 entries - in just over a month was an enormously pleasurable activity for Me.  Since returning from Finland and Norway just over five weeks ago, I haven't achieved much else around home.

My blog goes against what I believe it is that attracts others to view blogs; that is, the photos.  I spoke about this recently with another blogger who places his photos front and center.   My blog includes a lot of narrative.  I always try my best with my photos, but for me it's the story of the trip and writing about it that brings it back to life.  I loved Finland and Norway and this is a trip I don't want to forget.  Even the whiny parts.  My own belief is that people, generally and worldwide, are reading less and less.  But, for me, I want to read more and more.  Call me a contrarian, but for me reading is where I find the richness in life.      

Marathon

There are many kinds of marathons.  A running race.  An extra innings baseball game.  A World Cup soccer match that ends with a penalty shoot out.  A three and a half hour long war movie that you watched to the end.  I think of my Finland and Norway blog as a marathon. 

Unlike running a marathon which, in my younger years, I failed to finish, I have nearly made it to the end of my trip.  Twenty-two posts so far with one more photo entry and perhaps an adjacent essay-style entry will finish it off.  I've truly enjoyed it.  I told my best story and it may be my best trip review yet.  Of course, primarily it's all about the birds, but that's what the trip inescapably about.    

After finishing the eider post, I switched out my header.  You can tell I was a little punch happy when I made it. 

A few additional photos to add.

Sign at the border of Finland and Russia.

The road was blocked by a locked gate.  We came here on May 26th for our afternoon coffee and cookies after seeing the White-throated Dipper (Cinclus cinclus) beneath a road bridge over a fast moving river at Jyrkänkoski.  The border was about an hour drive from there.  Just a week before our visit to the dipper site and the Russian border, this article appeared in the New York Times:  "Russia Beefs Up Bases Near Finland's Border."  Gives me the shivers.  I was happy to be on the Finnish side drinking my coffee and eating cookies.

A charming, mid-morning stop for coffee and bird feeders at a restaurant in Lapland.

Lapland resident.

Båtsfjord harbor, Norway

One view, used for my header, of Båtsfjord village

Above and below:  Black Guillemot (Cepphus grylle) 

In Båtsfjord harbor where I found the Black-legged Kittiwake colony. There were four in total.

Another view of Båtsfjord harbor across from the kittiwake colony.

The above landscape is beautiful.  Reindeer in the center.

Nesseby Church in Nesseby

Sheep with lambs.  

Do I need five photos of sheep with lambs?  Probably not, but I did enjoy watching them.  At first I thought there was just one sheep with two lambs, but then others came out from behind the little grassy hills to join them.

Eiders

This experience reminded me of a similar experience during my first trip to Costa Rica.  I went back in my blog to a post titled Scarlet Macaws, dated February 24, 2014, to read what I wrote back then and look at the photos again.  I wanted to see if I was remembering correctly.  Yes, this was sort of like that.  

It was Saturday, May 31st and if my checklist is any guide, it was one of our busiest days of birding.  We started out in Båtsfjord, made several morning stops, some of which I have already named with other birds, and after a bagged lunch came to our second afternoon stop in Vadsø harbor.  The vans were parked and we all piled out into the harbor area. I don't recall either guide saying, "Take your cameras.  Go have fun." And we did not interrupt an intimate meeting of two lovers.  That part was different.  But we were here for one bird, and that part was very similar.  As with the Scarlet Macaws, this will always be memorable.  

I was slow on the uptake and thought we had come here for the close Common Eiders (Somateria mollissima).  We had seen them before, but more distantly.

It was when the little bird bringing up the rear in the top photo turned to give a lateral view that I saw why we had come.  

King Eider (Somateria spectabilis).  But so far away!

The King Eider did not stay far away but first it went around the bow of a boat and disappeared under the wharf.

Above and below:  Common Eider pair.

I like the rippled appearance of the surface of the water in these photos.

Those feet!

Harbors have lots of places for curious eiders to explore.

The King Eider returned from beneath the wharf and this time it was much closer.

I like the water drop at the tip of its bill. 

Above:  male Common Eider.  Handsome in its own right.

Above:  female Common Eider diving.

Above and two below:  Possibly my favorites of these photos.

All of the photos above, so similar to each other, are not necessary to remind me that I saw a King Eider in Norway.  Many people have seen King Eiders in Norway.  However, unless I return to Norway or travel to some other arctic birding spot, I am unlikely to ever see a King Eider again.  It's difficult for me to push the delete key on this bird.  I have deleted many, but all of these are keepers.  Such a quiet little bird. 

King Eiders were seen again, most notably a flock of 65 flew by at a sea watch in Persfjord, but I don't think many of us were able to get on those.  I didn't.  In any event a sea watch (as already discussed in The Lighthouse) would not be like our Vadsø harbor bird.

We did, however, come across our little eider again at the park in Vardø where we saw the displaying Ruffs, the school kids on an outing and the unidentified (moose, reindeer?) skull.  Circled in the photo above, it was taken from far away.  Of the other birds in the photo, aside from the Common Eiders, I only recognize Common Mergansers (Mergus merganser).  But the gray head (arrow pointing directly to it) and creamy breast feathers of the King Eider are very recognizable.  So it was that I said goodby to my first, and most likely only, King Eider.