Norway and Fisherman’s Friends

Having spent the previous few days travelling north through Finland, we now crossed the border into Norway, a country I had never before visited. No formalities at the border (apparently only dog passports get checked with any regularity) and we turned onto the road to Tara Bru. Almost immediately we pulled up by the roadside to enjoy great views of cuckoo, a bird often heard, sometime seen, but rarely seen this well. A little further up the road and we had great grey shrike, Norway was treating us well!

Cuckoo

Tara Bru proved to be an ordinary small town but useful for fuel and more coffee! Our next coffee stop (yes again) was in the magnificent surroundings of Hoyholmen, an isolated spot surrounded by rugged, flat mountains showing amazing geological formations and the flowing waters of a tidal fjord which eventually flows into the Arctic Sea. This stop brought us our first skuas in the form of both light and dark phase arctics and a number of arctic terns also.

Our final destination for the day was Batsfjord, a small town on the north coast of Norway’s Varanger peninsula, reached by just one road over the Gednje highlands. These highlands proved to be windswept, snow covered (to a degree that they just shouldn’t have been at this time of year) but quite magnificent. 

An advantage of the conditions was that the bare patches in the snow attracted the birds and we were soon adding a number of highland specialities. Breeding plumaged golden plover (can’t be many more striking waders than this one) were dotted at regular intervals across the landscape along with smaller numbers of ringed plover. Passerines were represented by shorelark, the males showing the handsome face pattern and ‘horns’, Lapland bunting and the perfectly named snow bunting, appearing in small, restless flocks. Harder to spot were willow grouse of which we found two, snow white from neck down but showing a brown head that perhaps allowed us to spot them in the first place. Taru managed to spot a single ptarmigan, one female sitting tight on a patch of earth even though still in bright, white winter garb.

Batsfjord itself had some freshwater as well as salt and this produced more black throated diver, red throated diver, scaup and perhaps sixty or so long tailed duck, showing the mix of plumage the species is known for but still of course, utterly distinctive. Looking away from the water and up at the rocky slope behind us, it did remind me of a spot in Scotland where I had seen ring ouzel and is if by magic, Petri called ‘ring ouzel’ and we had good views of this migratory highland, northern ‘blackbird’. Another good finish to a magnificent day.

Ring Ouzel

The beginning of the next day centred on gulls. Now I have to say that I really don’t get that excited by gulls and it turned out that I had an unlikely ally in Petri. Dave and Frank however like nothing better than to scan slowly through a big flock of the things, looking for a ‘white winger’ or a Caspian (which sounds a good deal more interesting than it actually is). However, we duly kicked off looking through a flock and easily found an immature glaucous gull. 

Glaucous Gull

That’s enough of gulls for now so moving on………

The road back across the Gednje highlands was somewhat more treacherous than the previous evening with the wind up and the snow beginning to drift across the tarmac. We again saw many of the highland specialists such as snow bunting and better views of willow grouse. In truth however, I think we were rather glad to reach the other side and perhaps not that surprised to learn that the road was closed not long after we went through, no doubt not helped by a jacknifed lorry. However, having once again stopped in Tara Bru, we headed east along the northern shore of the Varanger Fjord, our first stop producing more divers, terns and arctic skuas not to mention a decent sized flock of common scoter, including a small number of distant velvet scoter. We moved along the shore to Nesseby Church which turned out to be both a beautiful and productive spot. Waders, mostly dunlin with some ringed plover and the occasional turnstone, were both plentiful and close, running with the waves breaking on the sandy cove on the east side of the peninsular. Petri took my favourite photograph of the trip at this point, catching a beautiful, breeding plumage dunlin, mid stride, with a breaking wave behind. The nearest I could get was a shot of ringed plover which is nice, but not as good as Petri’s!

Ringed Plover

Ringed Plover and Dunlin

However, the excitement here was provided by Frank spotting a large falcon close to the church which saw the man himself running up a slope to get a better loo. Frank running is a rare sight (he isn’t Usain Bolt) but does generally indicate something interesting. What he described was a falcon without the sharply defined hood of a peregrine and as we all watched this bird fly rapidly away, low to the ground, what we saw was a rather uniform, brownish back and upper wings disappearing rapidly into the distance. We talked about this bird quite a bit over the next day or so, discussing the features with another Finnature guide who was familiar with both peregrine and gyrfalcon. In particular, the lack of a pale base to the rump and upper tail and the indistinct hood pointed towards gyrfalcon and it was on this species that we eventually settled. Anyone reading this and thinking ‘well of course you would’ should know that Frank (and I) are pretty hard to convince about rare birds such as this.

One of our targets for this coastline was Stella’s eider and ironically, the continued lack of spring helped us a bit here as we eventually found five immature males in the most easterly part of Vadso harbour, a very distinctive headshape (as it seemed to me) being one of the clinching factors for another life bird for both me and Frank.

A distinctly late lunch at the hamlet of Ekkeroy was the result of a tip off that two grey phalaropes were present a short way off the rocky shoreline. Now also called red phalaropes, these birds lived up to their newer name being in brilliant summer plumage, unbelievably joined by a red necked phalarope as we watched. This was new bird for Petri! Perhaps more surprising still was the ringtail hen harrier that drifted by towards the end of our stay. Our last stop before reaching our base for the next couple of days, Vardo, was Kibberg, a windswept sandy beach with our first purple sandpipers nosing around in the seaweed along with a good sized flock of red knot.

Vardo provided a surprise, to me anyway, even before we reached the town. I could see Vardo, getting closer as we moved along the coast but couldn’t quite work out the landscape; it seemed to be across the water but no one had mentioned a ferry? Well that was my ignorance I guess. Vardo proved to be an island reached by a 2.5km tunnel and on emerging from that tunnel, we entered what is I guess a typical Norwegian coastal town, in this case complete with nesting kittiwake on some of the harbourside buildings. Opening the curtains of our hotel room revealed a view directly into the harbour, with eider, oystercatcher and a single purple sandpiper present on the rocky shoreline immediately below.

Kittiwake

The weather wasn’t all that friendly the following morning but the much anticipated boat trip out to the neighbouring Hornoya Island (Bird Island) was on. Now the short crossing proved a little choppy it would fair to say (Petri and Taru being wholly comfortable and perhaps enjoying the slight discomfort for some in the boat?) but having been safely delivered to the island shore, next to the lined up shags who looked like spectators waiting for at least one of us to fall in the water, we immediately looked up at the facing cliff covered in guillemots, many of the bridled form and smaller numbers of Brunnichs Guillemots, a new species for me. We had a couple of hours to explore and started from the bottom of the cliff, watching the continual comings and goings of the guillemots with constant activity and noise all around us. There were small numbers of razorbill and puffin in the mix with the shags spread out along the cliff bottom and the rocky shoreline. One or two of those giving me a few verbal warnings not to get too close! We spent a challenging few minutes trying to capture flight shots, easier enough for the relatively sedate shags, much, much harder for the swift, jinking auks.

Guillemot

Guillemot (Bridled)

Puffin

Post another excellent fish lunch at the hotel, we headed out on the road to Hamningberg, a small hamlet some miles west and north of Vardo. This was maybe my favourite part of the entire trip, travelling through a truly arctic landscape of rugged, partially snow covered hills fringed by broken rocky edges described alternately as ‘volcanic’ or ‘lunar’. All the while, this dramatic coastline was being pounded by the northern seas driven by a strong wind straight out of the arctic. The coastline produced goosander, divers and diving duck such as long tailed, eider and king eider, another new bird for me this time in the shape of, initially, a single immature male before picking up a flock of perhaps forty further out. As elsewhere, golden plover were common enough along the way along with more dunlin. Rough legged buzzard and a single peregrine livened things up from a raptor viewpoint but if I am honest, it is the almost primeval landscape that will stay with me more than the birds.

Golden Plover

Hamningberg

Saturday was effectively our last as we flew home from Ivalo Sunday morning. So we drove back along the Varanger Fjord which still had moments of wonder to share with us. At Ekkeroy, we watched ruff in someone’s garden, Taru once again crouching on the floor of the minibus to allow us to take photographs as she had done on many occasions in the previous days (Taru was endlessly helpful and in this regard, very flexible!). The same garden produced arctic redpoll and tree sparrow.

Ruff

What was for me, bird of the trip, soon followed, with Mary picking up a skua in flight as we drove west. This one proved to be a long tailed skua in full breeding garb, lovely long tail streamers flexing in the wind and a sight that lives with me now as I write this. I had long wanted to see one of these and was lucky enough to find another at Nesseby church a short while later.

So why Fisherman’s Friends? When we first met Petri some three years previously, a very early question from Dave was whether he went naked fishing (apparently a thing in Norway). This brought a somewhat surprised ‘excuse me?!’ from Petri. On the last evening of our trip, Taru raised the subject of running a naked birding list; cue a series of almost tasteful jokes from Dave on that theme!

Our time in Norway and Finland had provided a number of surprises (like where was spring for example?), many beautiful birds, dramatic landscapes and of course, great company. My thanks to Petri and Taru, whom I hope I shall meet again, and of course to Dave, Mary and Frank. Until the next time.