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| The Wilson's Snipe twitch |
A few weeks back I mentioned to Ben Sheldon the possibility of organising a Sweden trip. This had been on the cards for a while - Ben frequently visits and is quite keen on his Swedish list, and a previous plan earlier in the year had fallen through. This time, I was gripped by reports of a displaying Wilson's Snipe in a relatively accessible part of Sweden. For some reason I found the idea of an American Snipe taking up residence in a Scandinavian forest, at a time of year where it never gets properly dark, really enticing. In Britain, Wilson's Snipe has exclusively been recorded on the Scillies in autumn/winter, where close views and increased observer awareness has resulted in a series of records supported by photo evidence. It is still a tricky identification, and in my opinion not the "best" way to experience the species. The display flight of Wilson's is distinct from Common Snipe, with the birds drumming using four outermost tail feathers rather than just two - producing a sound that is rarely heard in the Western Palearctic.
With a supporting cast of lingering rarities, including Dalmatian Pelican (first for Sweden), Blue-winged Teal, and Ring-billed Gull, together with the chance to see northern specialities such as Great Grey Owl and singing Blyth's Reed Warbler, it was clear that this was the perfect time to visit. I was also keen to study some Baltic Gulls in their core range, which would be a first for me after my attempts to identify them in Britain.
This will be a rather different blog post to usual, because I don't have many photos of birds to show. Unfortunately, my Olympus kit is currently being repaired after the lens mount sheared off. Seemingly many small knocks have taken their toll - the lens had had a bit of lateral play for a while and as I was taking it out of my bag it completely fell apart. I did bring my old Canon 7d Mark II and 400mm f/5.6 but to be honest I wasn't particularly motivated to use it. In any case, at least you've all been spared another fuscus photo gallery/essay...
We flew from Heathrow to Stockholm Arlanda late evening on Sunday 6th July, and after an uneventful journey we settled into our accommodation in Uppsala in preparation for an early start on Monday morning.
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| A fantastic sunset from the balcony of the house |
Our first stop was Hjälstaviken, a large lake southwest of Uppsala which is a well-known site for migrating waders and wildfowl. Amongst the many Wood Sandpipers were our only Curlew Sandpipers of the trip (a flock of five), and sitting in the Black-headed Gull colony were two Caspian Terns. On the way back to the car we had a nice view of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. We then drove to Frövisjön, where the Blue-winged Teal was currently summering. Breeding Goldeneye and Little Gull were good to see, whilst a couple of Spotted Redshank and Ruff were the best of the migrant waders. The duck was nowhere to be seen, however - it was apparently favouring an area of reeds around a large bush, and was out in the open only sporadically. Other twitchers on site reported some people having to wait six hours to see the bird! We spend a while half-heartedly grilling a couple of mostly obscured birds, before we had to move on - although as the site was relatively close by, we planned to return the following day.
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| View over Hjälstaviken from the tower - quite typical of Scandinavian nature reserves, which favour these viewing platforms over hides. I'd like to see more of them in the UK! |
After stopping for some snacks, we began the drive through Uppland to our main target for today, the Dalmatian Pelican. The bird had been roaming widely between Sweden and Finland since being found, but had luckily settled down a bit by the time our trip rolled round, and was frequenting the island of Orarna, which is a nature reserve with no public access. There were a few points on the mainland from which people had been seeing the Pelican, and we were encouraged by recent update on its location as we drove north.
We pulled up at the suggested viewpoint and couldn't immediately see where to start searching - rather than the vista we expected, we were looking at a narrow strip of water between the mainland and Orarna. There was no sign of the Pelican, nor any twitchers. Continuing along the path, we soon encountered a large group of birders scoping something. Glancing briefly in the direction they were viewing, I could see a distant white shape through bins - this was surely the bird. I set my scope on it and you can imagine my disappointment when I realised that it was a Mute Swan! It transpired that the Pelican had only been seen briefly in flight earlier, before being lost to view somewhere in the reedy inlets surrounding the island. The positioning of the group of twitchers was very odd, standing about 20 metres back from what was a much better viewpoint right next to the shore, where a gap in the trees allowed you to see over the water. Standing where we were, there was only tiny field of view to look for the Pelican. We daren't question this strange decision - perhaps this is how twitches are done in Sweden - so waited for a while before deciding that this was obviously futile. A flyover Osprey salvaged the stop.
We spent the afternoon visiting a few other sites in the area with Joe Wynn, who was also in Sweden for fieldwork. The bay at Ledskärsbryggan had hosted Pacific Golden Plover in the last week, but we had no luck searching amongst the Lapwings - however, an Icterine Warbler calling from the car park bushes was a welcome addition. Looking out over the Baltic Sea at Rödhäll, we picked up a few more ticks - Red-breasted Merganser, Goosander, Eider, Black Guillemot, and two Arctic Skuas mobbing a White-tailed Eagle. I also had my first views of Baltic Gull, very distantly on one of their colony islands (where Joe had been ringing earlier in the day). Apparently they are quite pelagic compared to other gulls and their colony sizes are rather small - typically only a few pairs. A Hobby flying far out over the sea was another oddity. We unsuccessfully tried twitching a Citrine Wagtail at Södra Vendelsjön, with the only birds of note being a flock of Black Terns over the lake.
News that the Pelican was roosting back on its favourite rock meant that we had to give it another go. We pulled up next to the pier at Lutens Väg and joined a few other birders already present. Here we had a nice view across the bay to Orarna, but the island was so distant I was wondering how on earth we would be able to identify the bird. Measuring on Google maps, we were around 4km away from the shoreline! The instructions given were brief and unenthusiastic - left of the left turbine, on the white rock. I couldn't see anything through bins. Cranking up the scope, I was able make out a few birds on the island. I could see a large white rock, and realised that the top half of the rock was in fact a perched white bird, completely tucked up. I panned over to compare its size with a Mute Swan, and confirmed that the blob was substantially bigger. We also noted the tuft of feathers at the back of its head, visible even though it had its bill hidden. Enough to confirm that this was indeed the Dalmatian Pelican (or at the very least a Pelican), although possibly the most unsatisfying world tick ever. We waited for a while to see if it would reveal its head, but no luck. We read later that the bird had been chased off of its perch by White-tailed Eagles - now that would have been quite something to see! We called it a day and headed back to Uppsala.
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| The Dalmatian Pelican on its favourite rock, with Cormorants to the right. Video below showing how far we had to zoom in! |
Another early start the next morning for a singing Blyth's Reed Warbler fairly near to our accommodation. The bird showed surprisingly well, although its proximity to the road meant that my recordings are quite noisy. It is amazing how far the sound of a car travels! A lifer for me and a bird that I hope to see/find in Britain soon. A stop at a newly-created wetland produced excellent views of Red-necked and Slavonian Grebe on territory, before we headed into Stockholm.
Our main target here was a summering Ring-billed Gull, as well as the opportunity to observe Baltic Gulls at close range. An added bonus was the fact that Lars Jonsson's Invisibilis exhibition is currently running at the Liljevalchs Art Gallery - a must-see for any birder visiting Stockholm. We parked the car just around the corner from the Ring-billed Gull site, which turned out to be an ornamental pond and fountain in the middle of a city square - completely bizarre. There were a few Black-headed and Common Gulls milling around, although no sign of the bird, so we decided to get some food and wait. I of course offered a few scraps to the birds, and soon a nice adult Baltic Gull flew down and practically ate out of my hand, before deciding to steal Ben's cinnamon bun - fantastic. I also briefly saw a couple of 3cy fuscus, and I was pleased to see that these looked very similar to the candidate bird I had at Stanton St John in May - complete with advanced mantle/tail moult. Apparently, 2cy birds are quite uncommon in Sweden, with most summering further south.
Just as we were getting up to leave, the Ring-billed Gull flew in, instantly recognisable in flight even from a distance. Initially it perched up on the roof of a nearby cafe, although another cinnamon bun was enough to tempt it down. Clearly the bird is very used to people, and by this point we had been joined by a couple of other twitchers, who enjoyed seeing us feeding it at close range. This video illustrates just how well it showed - useless trying to use my DSLR most of the time, as the 400mm focal length was far too long to fit the whole bird in the frame. I chose to enjoy it mostly without optics, which also seemed more apt in a city centre setting.
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We headed over to the gallery, taking in Stockholm's small population of Barnacle Geese - apparently derived both from escaped stock and natural colonisation. I was absolutely blown away by the exhibition, having previously seen many of the paintings in books/online. In life, I was taken by his use of negative space when painting winter scenes using watercolour (not immediately apparent when just viewing images), and the large format of his work. There was a mixture of watercolour field sketches, fine art oils and field guide plates spread across several large rooms - Jonsson is clearly a much-loved artist in Sweden to have commanded such an extensive exhibition. The highlight for me was a piece called "Evolution", a wall of 300 gull field sketches from across the globe (and, bizarrely, one spoonbill - perhaps some artistic humour). Somewhat overwhelming to experience rare gulls and the art of Lars Jonsson in the space of just a few hours. I only wish I had had more time to spend at the exhibition, as I think I could have spent an entire day there.
We were on a tight schedule, however, with the plan being to connect with Wilson's Snipe that evening, so we had one last look at the Ring-billed Gull before heading out of the city. We had another session dipping the Blue-winged Teal on our drive west. The views changed from the flat, semi-agricultural land surrounding Stockholm to more hilly, forested and undeniably wilder looking landscapes as we approached the site. After around three hours we turned north along a gravel track into the forest - we had arrived. Apart from a couple of houses along the track, the place was deserted. A pair of Black Woodpeckers called as we got out of the car and headed into the forest.
The Wilson's Snipe had not been seen the previous day, although we chalked this up to sporadic visits from twitchers now that it had been on territory for a while. According to reports, the bird was reliably displaying around 8pm, so we had arrived right on time. We walked a short distance through the trees towards a more open area, and the ground became increasingly boggy. After around 20 minutes waiting, we couldn't hear or see any Snipe at all - whether Common or Wilson's - so we were getting a bit confused. Displaying birds should be audible from quite far away. There was also no sign of the tree stumps that the bird had been favouring and it all looked pretty overgrown. Surely this couldn't be right - I checked the map with Ben and it became apparent that the last person to upload a sighting of the bird had dropped the map pin in the wrong place! All of the previous drop pins were from another area of clearfell a few hundred metres away, and grumbling, we made our way back along the path, shoes full of water.
Pulling in at the correct layby (which already had a birder's car parked in it), we followed a well-trodden path leading away along the edge of a field. Rounding a corner, a somewhat post-apocalytic landscape stretched away in front of us, full of smashed trees and stagnant puddles. In the middle of this scene were two figures and a scope, solemnly facing the setting sun. We hurried towards our fellow twitchers and enquired about the Wilson's Snipe. They had arrived a short while previously and confirmed that the bird was still present - it had perched briefly on its favourite stump before being chased away by a Common Snipe. We had missed it by minutes, so we were gripped. If we hadn't wasted half an hour at the wrong location, we would have already seen it! In true Swedish fashion, they calmly assured us that it would soon return and begin displaying.
Feeling slightly more optimistic, I set my scope on the perch and began waiting. Despite the logging destruction the atmosphere of the place was phenomenal. Woodcocks were roding overhead, Cranes bugled unseen from beyond the clearfell and a flock of Swifts were hunting insects in the dying light. A Great Grey Shrike perched up on one of the firs behind us - a nice Swedish tick.
The attitude to twitching in Sweden seems very different to the UK. Both of our companions were not just patiently waiting for the bird, but actively searching rather than chatting loudly or sitting idly on their phones. In fact there was a silently focused, serene, almost druidic air to the twitch. One guy was laden with every piece of gear you could possibly need - bins, scope, camera, parabolic microphone, thermal imager, mosquito thermacell, all neatly arranged in camo pouches. Every so often he would scan the parabolic microphone with headphones in, listening for distant signs of the bird. I have never been more impressed.
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| Ben Sheldon, Jens Morin and Son(?) |
Mist rolled in across the clearing, and the bird's favourite perches were soon obscured. A Redwing called overhead. It was getting cold and damp and there was still no sign of the bird. Ben returned to the car to get more clothing and had a brief sighting of a moose - gripped! It was now as dark as it was going to get that night, although the sky was still pale and clear. Despite the mist and setting sun, bird activity was increasing. These were probably my best ever views of Woodcocks roding, and I distracted myself with taking some sound recordings. A fantastic ambience.
Despite this Ben was somewhat despairing at the bird's absence - "I can't believe we're here on the one night it isn't displaying!". I told him that we had only been waiting 90 minutes and was willing to stay here all night until we connected. Despite this, I worried that he was becoming silently inconsolable - at one point I glanced over and he was looking at the ground, shaking his head. I wondered what I would say on the three-and-a-half-hour drive back if we dipped, especially as we had arguably twitched this bird all the way from Britain!
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| The mid-twitch dip in mood |
Eventually, our Swedish friend detected something through the parabolic microphone. Straining my ears, I could just about hear a Snipe calling a few hundred metres away. He confirmed that it was a Common Snipe, but that this mirrored what happened when the Wilson's Snipe last showed, with other birds encouraging it to start displaying. "It is a good sign" he said, with a slight smile. After a few minutes he said that he thought he could hear the Wilson's Snipe calling as well. I wasn't familiar with the differences in the chip calls so was struggling a bit. He said that it had called a couple of times before and that the chip was slightly harsher sounding. I thought I could hear a different rhythm as well, but to be honest wasn't sure if what I was picking up was variations in Common Snipe. "We need more than this" said Ben.
The sound stopped for a couple of minutes and I saw a Snipe fly low across the clearing right in front of us - it looked a bit odd, rather short-billed, and I wondered it that could have been the Wilson's Snipe, although the light was really gone by this point. Surely enough, birds began calling again from a stack of trees much closer to us - seemingly a mixture of Common and Wilson's type vocalisations, and I was beginning to appreciate the differences a bit more. I've attached a sound recording below, of what I believe to be a Common Snipe followed by Wilson's Snipe calling, potentially with a brief duet at the end, although after looking through Xeno-canto I'm not 100% sure of the extent of variation and this could well just be one bird. If anyone reading has any insights please let me know - apparently an article on the differences in vocalisations is being prepared for the Swedish birding magazine, based on recordings from this bird.
What we really needed now was some drumming - proper display flight. We only had to wait a few minutes more before that haunting sound floated over the tops of the trees towards us. So different to Common Snipe - higher pitched, slower paced, sounding less "mechanical" and more like some strange winnowing owl. Despite the fact that the bird was presumably right over our heads, it offered only the faintest of glimpses during its display - I assume it was way up high and the light was too dim for us to resolve it properly. One of the Swedish birders said he could make it out as a dot whizzing around through the thermal imager. Still, the sound was what I had mostly come for, and the fact that we could barely see it somehow made the experience even more ethereal. Volume up for the video!
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| The Wilson's Snipe was displaying over this clearing - Woodcock also audible in the recording below |
We listened to the Wilson's Snipe for around half an hour before heading back to the car, conscious that we still had to drive through the night to get back to Uppsala. We were both completely exhausted, almost turning onto the wrong side of the motorway as we left the forest tracks. An arduous journey followed, with the road being temporarily closed for resurfacing before we were randomly stopped by police. I was not expecting my first breathalysing experience to be at 2am in Sweden after twitching an American wader! I was most concerned about whether they were going to ask me to get out of the car, because it would have then become obvious that I wasn't wearing any shoes - they had got so sodden in the bog that I couldn't face driving in them for hours. I can't imagine that the police would have been impressed! Eventually we made it back to Uppsala and watched the sun rise again at 02:45am. What a phenomenal experience.
After a couple of hours sleep, we spent the morning of the third and final day checking out a few local sites, including some woodland and reedbed that we had previously neglected. Another visit to the scrapes at Hjälstaviken yielded two Temminck's Stints, a pair of Honey Buzzards were soaring over the woods behind, and juvenile Bearded Tits pinged in the reedbed. We stopped for another hour to dip the Blue-winged Teal for the last time before accepting that it wasn't to be. Despite being reported by other birders each day of our trip, somehow we were unable to connect with this bird - although if I had to choose which of our targets to miss in Sweden it would surely be the Blue-winged Teal, so not too bad going. Only downside was the amount of time spent staring at that bush!
We returned to Uppsala, taking in Ben's old patch (where he famously found Sweden's second Slender-billed Gull) before meeting up with Per Alström, who kindly provided lunch. After three days of service station food and bits of bread, we responded to the paneer curry laid out before us like sailors coming ashore after a season at sea! Per had agreed to show us some local sites for Great Grey Owl which had been found by Bo Söderström, who specialises in sound recording in these forests (link to his extraordinary SoundCloud here). In the interests of keeping the locations hidden I'll let these photos do the talking, in lieu of providing a detailed description. I realise that I've let the superlatives flow freely throughout this blog post, but honestly these were just amazing birds.
We found the juvenile first, which was already very impressive (although I must admit thinking that it wasn't quite as large as I imagined). This was then completely eclipsed by the adult sitting a few trees away, both in size and aura. The bird was almost completely unconcerned by our presence, often turning its back to us and continuing to doze. At one point it spread its wings and flew a short distance - it must be incredible to see them hunting.
We also picked up a few other forest specialities, such as Capercaillie, Crested Tit and Tree Pipit, but dipped Ural Owl at a different site in the forest. Unfortunately, it was a bit too late in the season to try for owls in nestboxes, such as Tengmalm's and Pygmy. By this point we were completely exhausted so bailed on attempting to see Nightjar, especially as we had an early flight back the following morning. We finished on 131 species across the three days.
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| Ben Sheldon and Per Alström |
