With temperatures down to -28C it was hardly surprising that birds were hard to find in the limited time I spent birding.
Incredibly a Treecreeper trekryper showed up in -22C. This bird must have survived weeks of such temperatures. That an insect eating species such as this continues to survive under such conditions is nothing short of amazing!
The river at Heggeriset gradually froze over but still held a Whooper sangsvane and a few each of Mallard stokkand and Dipper fossekall.
Higher up there were a lot of tracks in the snow - Roe Deer, Hare, Elg, a bunch of other stuff and lots of game birds. Eventually I found out that the only way to see any of the birds was to get out early so on 14 February I left a perfectly warm bed and headed into the hills where I was rewarded with four male Black Grouse orrfugl at a lek - amazing that they have the energy for this given the low temperatures! No females were present so no romance for these boys trying their best on a mildly put chilly Valentine's day. I aslo got a brief glimpse of a Willow Grouse lirype.
My eyelashes froze, as did the lenses on my binoculars. Otherwise a very pleasant morning:)
Other than that very few finches, plenty of Great-spotted Woodpecker flaggspett and the Hawk Owl haukugle at Drevsjø remained faithful to its chosen tree....
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