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18 June 2014. Sylvhyttea, Dalarna, Sweden. This corner of Sweden, the Landskap of Dalarna, holds some interesting lessons for other parts of the world. I’m not talking of the legendary Swedish way of living in a thoughtfully modern, clean and harmonious society, a condition that I can’t help feeling is about as far as it is possible to get from the way things work in other parts of the western world, Texas or Florida for example, I’m thinking of some lessons learned about nature’s ability to recover from industrialization, but only if you’re lucky.

Dalarna and much of Northern Sweden is rich in minerals: iron, copper and other ores; indeed one of the world’s richest deposits of iron ore lies in Kiruna, well north of Dalarna and within the Arctic Circle. For two or three hundred years from the seventeenth to the first half of the twentieth centuries, Dalarna was pockmarked with mines and smelting operations, some of them on a necessarily small scale but a few very large.

The tranquil little corner where I heard the Cuckoo a couple of days ago, Norn, was just such a place. Although the scale was small, just two towering furnaces for smelting ore, its footprint was large: The diversion of natural water courses to power water wheels; The unceasing clearance of forests to fire the smelting processes; The attendant infrastructure that goes with heavy industry; Everything involved in transportation of raw and finished materials, and supporting the homes and community of a hundred or so souls. Today little remains of all of that, it is now a pretty little lakeside village with a dozen or so interesting homes and assorted buildings, some odd topography and the mostly overgrown ruins of what once must have been a dirty and in many ways dangerous place. Today you visit Norn to see the Swallows nesting in the old smelting house, watch White Wagtails strutting down the quiet gravel road and listen for Cuckoos; at least I asume that’s what most people do.

The lesson happily learned is that despite centuries of violent abuse of, and intrusion into, a natural landscape, Mother Nature can sometimes recover and reclaim the landscape and make it pretty again. I don’t want to trivialize the power of mankind’s industry to lay waste; goodness knows there are enough examples of damage done that will take centuries, if ever to undo: Chernobyl, Sudbury and the Sahara Desert come to mind; Dalarna got off lightly.

Today we visited a couple of old abandoned mine sites and ended up at Sylvhyttea (there should be two dots over that final ‘a’), a quiet little picnic spot sitting between two sizeable forest-encircled lakes. A small waterway with a lift lock connects the two lakes and it, together with a handful of picturesque stone and wood-clad buildings, is almost all that remains today of a sizeable industrial enterprise that grew up around smelting silver and later, and more successfully, iron. Now it it one of the nicest picnic sites imaginable, a century ago doubtless it was a grossly polluted and rather desolate place. It was here that we encountered a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers who were busy carrying food to their nest-load of hungry youngsters. Rather like the Fieldfares of Day One of our holiday, the Great Spotted Woodpecker is another of those dreamed-of childhood birds; often wondered about from the pages of books but never actually seen by me until I find myself where they are commonplace. But there they were, large as life and living up to the description found in my field guide, “...saturated red underparts sharply demarcated from whitish belly, by unstreaked flanks, and by its two large, white, oval shoulder patches. The black wings are barred white….” Once seen it turns out they’re everywhere, or so I’m told.  The Great Spotted Woodpecker is a reasonably frequent winter visitor to bird feeders and my son mentioned that he’d watched a couple from his apartment balcony just this morning; never mind, that doesn’t detract from Great Spotted Woodpecker being my Bird of the Day.

My dallying to admire and perhaps get a photograph of the woodpecker may have momentarily taxed the patience of the rest of our group.  But then it should be noted that in the greater interests of the group’s agenda I let pass many even more intriguing sightings that normally would have held my attention for much longer. This is the season of intense bird parenting, there seems to be fledglings and anxious adults everywhere I turn and with such easy pickings I was able to enjoy watching a pair of Swallows visiting their nest under a small dock, Spotted and Pied Flycatchers carrying food and even a nervous female Goldeneye with three scurrying young bobbing in her wake.

June 16 Hedemora, Sweden. Upon our arrival at at Stockholm’s international airport the immigration officer dutifully asked a round of penetrating questions:  “Purpose of your visit?”  Vacation.” “Where are you staying?”  “Stockholm.” “How Long are you staying?” “Three weeks.”  He looked up sharply and retorted; “Three weeks! In Stockholm?”  Well, actually no, that was only a part of the plan.

It’s a majestic and apparently well-functioning city and we’ve seen bits of it from a few of its many sides; and have no complaints. But today it was time to leave the city for another part of Sweden, Dalarna, a ‘landskap’ or province to the north of the capital and the emotional folk-heart of the country. To my mind, it has a landscape not unlike that of Maine, made of abrupt forest-covered hills with wide knee-deep green farm fields between, like rolled out carpets at their feet.  It was among the quiet and sometimes darker corners of this countryside that I started seeing and hearing different and sometimes quite startling birds. I kept thinking I was seeing my bird of the day until the next surprise popped up.

First, Goldfinches, a species that for centuries was caught and kept as cage birds for their musical tinkling songs, carmine red faces and bright yellow wing-flashes, I saw a couple flying beside us along a quiet roadside where thistles and other rich seed-bearing plants provide plenty of food.

Next came a Cuckoo, clearly heard but not seen. The first of the year confirms the arrival of full blown spring in Northern Europe. It’s often difficult to be sure just how close or how far away it is when you first catch the distinctive two-syllable call. Like the goldfinches, cuckoos have a centuries-old place in the soul of country-folk and find expression in cuckoo clocks and classical music.

But Bird of the Day has to be a Ural Owl (although there was to be stiff competition later). We spotted this bird flying away from us on large silent wings and into a forest clearing as we drove along a narrow, quiet road. My companions (non-birders all) were mildly impressed at the glimpse of an owl, but I needed more and was wondering how this guest in Sweden could reasonably kick and scream to get it. With some urging and assurances of the possibility of success, I suggested that we back up slowly to the same clearing. The bird was just where we’d seen it go to, on a branch about fifty metres into the forest, but not at all relaxed at being rediscovered so after a few seconds flew away deeper into the forest and out of sight. I’d seen enough though to be able to go to my field guide later and be sure that it was a Ural Owl, in shape somewhat like a small Great Grey Owl, no other owl of that general shape and size has a range that includes Sweden.

The last sighting that almost displaced the Ural Owl from its Bird of the Day status was a group of Cranes seen far off in a tilled field. My driver companion was pretty sure that I’d lost all sense of rational proportion when I begged him to stop while I inspected and tried to photograph a distant group of Cranes (of all things). They’re common enough around here and something of a noisy spectacle when they first return in spring, but apparently really not anything to get all that excited about. Easy for him to say, but these are not good old Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis), but Cranes! The original benchmark of the genus Grus, in this case Grus grus; Crane. As is the case with so many European birds’ names, it lacks any adjectival component, so it’s just Crane, or just Robin, Kestrel or Goldfinch; it’s been the task and burden of the rest of the world to distinguish their new-found lookalikes with something to set them apart. Well, we’re happy enough to do it.

12 June 2014 Stockholm, Sweden. We’ve been planning this trip to Sweden for months and the Princeton Birds of Europe field guide has been a key part of my pre search/research. I’m still not really sure what to expect from the greater part of Sweden since it appears to be bypassed by many of the birds of Europe; still my first couple of days have been rewarding. I grew up in England, and while we’re here in Stockholm, I’m seeing many of my familiar garden birds: Magpies, Blackbirds, Chaffinches, Jays and both Great and Blue Tits. I’ve added a few new-to-me birds too: Baltic Gull (actually a subspecies of the Lesser Great Black-backed Gull), Hooded Crow and Fieldfares, a species which as a child I always longed to see.
Fieldfares are a large thrush closely related to (in the same genus) as the American Robin, European Blackbird and Clay-coloured Thrush of Central America. They are predominantly birds of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia but my childhood field guides (such as they were) tantalizingly suggested that I might sometimes see one in England during the winter; I never did. But now, fifty years later, they’re everywhere around me, commoner that any other species and I’m pleased to be able to fill the gap in my mental ‘seen that’ files and deservingly they’ve been my Bird of the Day for a couple of days.
Jays are fairly common too and I’ve seen first hand evidence of why they are loathed by many sentimentalists. Twice I have watched a Jay seize, kill and partially dismember fledgeling Blue Tits as food for its own ravenous young. Blue Tits raise large broods, eight is not unusual, and clearly many are doomed to perish at an early age; after all it only takes one offspring to survive over the breeding life of a single adult to keep the population steady.

 

10 June 2014. Burlington, ON. A little bit short of time today (for reasons that will become apparent in the next few days), but time enough to head out at first light to look for some grassland birds. I went to a provincial park not far from home, to an area that was formerly farmland and has not so far been transformed into picnic areas or sports fields. June is a nice time to see birds, the great rush hour being done, the birds are active on territory either establishing or confirming ownership through energetic song, or feeding young. You don’t need to spend as much time looking for birds, now you can enjoy looking at them.

My tally this morning included Grasshopper, Savannah, Field and Song Sparrows all purposefully zipping from one lookout to another and anxiously singing and chipping to let me know I had no right to be there. I could see and hear Bobolinks including this food-carrying female. A rather splendid Brown Thrasher followed me along a hedgerow, singing occasionally but was noticeably more intent on making sure I meant no harm. An Alder Flycatcher had firm control of the area around an old hawthorn, until the thrasher showed up that is, whereupon the flycatcher deferentially stepped to one side; apparently there’s no point squabbling with a Brown Thrasher over who gets top branch.

The sparrows, thrasher and flycatcher photos are in a gallery visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email.

Bird of the Day was a small group of Sedge Wrens who had taken possession of a couple of acres of old grassy field. You don’t see Sedge Wrens very often, although their relative the Marsh Wren is reasonably common, so hearing the electric chatter that is their hallmark was a special event for me. I was lucky to get this picture of one from some distance away. They move around from one grassy spot to another in a fast-whirring low-level flight that takes some concentration to follow.

Finally, if Yellow Warblers weren’t so common we might celebrate them a bit more than we do. They really are sensational; the chestnut streaks is the field mark that makes this one a male.

6 June 2014. Burlington, ON. I’d been invited and happily agreed to help a couple of young biologists with some survey work this morning. The target species was Least Bitterns and the game plan was to visit four marsh sites to follow an established protocol that also included a five-minute recording of Least Bittern calls in hopes that it might evoke a response. We came up empty handed, but it was a delightful three-and-a-bit hours. When you can do off-trail bird census work at first light and not get dew-soaked to your thighs and quite chilled, it’s a good morning.

Our highlights included at least two large broods of Wood Duck ducklings, each smaller than your fist, threading through wide spreads of water lilies following the hens around the ponds. That each hen had maybe ten ducklings in tow looks cute, but it is an ominous indicator of the mortality rate among such young and flightless birds; predators are everywhere: Snapping Turtles and Pike sometimes pull them under, and when they’re ashore they fall prey to foxes, raccoons and owls.

We watched a circling Osprey carrying a gleaming and thrashing fish until it found a prominent perch on which to tear apart its breakfast. It’s interesting how Ospreys always (I think) carry a captured fish head first, the most aerodynamic way I suppose.

As we made our way along a raised boardwalk, a small sparrow flew across in front of us and dropped down into the growing cattails. It was carrying food for its nestlings and I quickly identified it as a Swamp Sparrow. It’s not that Swamp Sparrows are particularly uncommon in summer, but this one was obviously nervous about further betraying the location of its nest. It stayed where it was long enough for us to examine it quite closely and appreciate the key field mark that makes it a Swamp Sparrow, large patches of reddish brown on its wings. For that lingering look it was my Bird of the Day.

The low morning sun also showed off nicely a couple of other birds: a pair of Trumpeter Swans puddling for whatever edibles can be found in the mud of shallow ponds and this back-lit female Red-winged Blackbird who is also carrying wriggling food for her brood of nestlings.