Eagles, falcons and beautiful passerines are among birds I have pictured in Sweden, Finland, Norfolk in England and Lefkada, Greece.
Golden Eagles in northern Sweden
We were filled with awe when the eagle appeared and perched on a tree branch in front of us shortly after dawn. The Golden Eagle is extremely wary and a wise bird. It sat on the perch for awhile and watched a group of Magpies, nibbling at a carrion on the snow in the edge of the forest.
Sometimes the Golden Eagle and the Magpie and Raven are allies in the struggle for survival and work together when hunger strikes in winter. When the eagle sees a group of Magpies or Ravens flitting in the snow it knows it is quite likely they have found a delicious carrion. The corvids don’t have strong enough beaks to tear through the skin and open a large-bodied carrion. Then an ally like the eagle comes in handy. When the Golden Eagle comes with its strong beak the Magpie knows the feast can start. Because even though the eagle is huge there is a limit to how much it can eat at one go. In the end the Magpies have the leftovers for themselves.
The eagle that appeared before us was a female. In this area, close to a village named Kalvträsk in northern Sweden, two Golden Eagle pairs have bred in recent years. Apart from them two young eagles had come to the area and stayed there for some time. As sometimes happens in the civilised world of man the Golden Eagles don’t always welcome newcomers in their territory.
When the female eagle started to devour the carrion another eagle appeared and approached her, hoping to get a bite. However, she had no intention to share the food and after a sharp fight she managed to repel the intruder.
I was there in the forest with British photographers, among them Ron McCombe, a wildlife photographer who had gone to this area fifteen times before to take pictures of Golden Eagles. A Swedish bird photographer, Conny Lundström, provided a hide as well as counsel and he was a fountain of information on the birds, having monitored the eagles in this area for decades.
The Golden Eagle is a majestic sight in the sky and is often called the king of birds. It is among the biggest eagles in the world, but smaller than the White-tailed Eagle. The European Golden Eagle is 80-93 cm in length (the White-tailed Eagle 77-95 cm) and its wingspan is 190-227 cm (White-tailed Eagle 200-245). The female weighs 4-6 kilos but the male is smaller and weighs around 3-4,5 kilos.
The Swedish Golden Eagle mainly hunts rodents and birds like Rock Ptarmigans and Black Grouse. Sometimes it also eats bigger mammals, such as Red Foxes, lambs and newborn Reindeer calves. Also, they often scavenge on carrion in winter.
When hunting the Golden Eagle sometimes sours high in the sky and dives very fast towards the prey. It can reach 240-320 km per hour and only the Peregrine Falcon is faster.
In many parts of Europe most of the Golden Eagles nest in cliffs but in northern Sweden the eagles nest on old and big pine trees. The average age of the trees they choose is 355 years and the average height is 17,2 meters. The branches have to be very strong because the aeries can weigh hundreds of kilos.
Most Golden Eagles reside in mountainous regions and far away from human settlements, having learnt to avoid humans as if they were plagued.
Birds in Sweden
Eagles and other birds in Finland
In the autumn of 2017 I went on a bird watching trip to Finland and stayed there for a week in a village close to Oulu, a city in the northern part of the country. The main goal was to see Golden Eagles and after a long wait in hides we finally saw one. I found out that the best time to see the eagles in this area is January and February. Anyway, I used the opportunity to watch other birds in magical Finnish forests, adorned with beautiful autumn colours.
Falcons and other birds in Norfolk
Norfolk in East-England is a popular destination among British bird-watchers because there you can find many species that are rare in other parts of Great-Britain. In Norfolk there are several well known nature reserves, such as the one in Titchwell, where the avifauna is very diverse.
I stayed in Norfolk for a week in June 2018 and saw many species I had never seen before, such as some rare vagrants, beautiful owls with a heart-shaped face and three species of falcons. For instance I came across a Peregrine Falcon which had settled down on a church tower in a beautiful beech town, Wells-next-the-Sea. In one of the reserves I saw a Hobby, a small and very swift falcon, which had just arrived there from Africa and was hunting dragonflies.
In a nearby town a Kestrel was seen flying away from Swallows. The Kestrel saw a birdhouse where Wood Nuthatch chicks were waiting for some mouthwatering insects from their parents. Even though Kestrels in Norfolk almost exclusively hunt mouse-sized mammals this one could not resist trying to catch the chicks. It didn’t succeed though, gave up and flew away.
Among the vagrants was a Red-backed Shrike, a species that was once a common migratory visitor to Britain but is now rare and only breeds sporadically, mainly in Scotland and Wales. Some of the species I saw sometimes stray to Iceland – or are blown here by autumn storms over the Atlantic Ocean.
Birds in Greece
There is a diverse avifauna in the Greek town of Lefkada on an island with the same name. I stayed there with my family for two weeks in July 2019 and went for walks early in the mornings to watch birds before the sun got too strong. I saw some Flamingos and other birds I had never seen before.
It would be nice to go there in autumn or spring when the heat is bearable and the avifauna is even more diverse than in summer. Then it is possible to see pelicans and other migratory birds that make stopovers on a lagoon in the town.
