The luck of the birder

Luck is a major factor in life and no less so in birding. A flyover bird will only be seen if you are in the right place at the right time and ditto hearing a calling bird. Hard work and long hours in the field will obviously increase your chances and knowledge of especially calls will help you find a lot more birds but luck is still probably the single most important factor.

The last couple of days have certainly been lucky for me. On Saturday as I got out of the car at home I heard a goose calling that I immediately recognised as from one of the Bean Geese and I just had time to get my bins from the car and see it was a Taiga Bean! – species 204 in #Oslo2024. Then today I was in the car in Maridalen when a message came through of a Yellow-browed Warbler in Oslo. 12 minutes later I was at the site and after a further three minutes I had species 205 on the list!!!! That was where my luck run out though. The bird was by a kindergarten and I am not a fan of hanging around places frequented by small kids with a big camera over my shoulders… I therefore had my camera in my bag and after just a second of watching the YbW I went to get my camera out such that I could digitally record this moment. Of course, once I had the camera raised I couldn’t find the bird again. A couple of minutes later I glimpsed it in flight as it was being chased by a Goldcrest and this was also the only time I heard it call. Another 45 minutes of waiting gave no other sign of it and the three other birders who arrived after me were not lucky either. But I had been lucky 😊 Even if it was my worst ever view of the species I had at least seen it and it was safely on the year list despite me having given up on seeing the species at all this year.

 

Pine Grosbeaks are still being seen and I had eight in Maridalen today but they are clearly still on the move and not yet settled although I am sure that quite soon there will be some settled and reliable flocks.

still 2 months to go and my Oslo year list is 205 (203 post redpoll lump), this is a total way beyond what I thought possible

Piney in Maridalen today

Piney has arrived

I have now lived in Norway for 23 and a half years. It took me 10 years to see my first Pine Grosbeak and that was on the breeding grounds in Pasvik, Finnmark but I followed that up with my first Oslo bird the next year on 29 Oct 2012 with my first Oslo bird. That winter there were lots in Maridalen although as it was not a berry year they were always feeding in the top of the highest spruce trees.

Late autumn in 2016 there were a few birds in Oslo and then autumn 2019 there was a proper invasion which was surprisingly followed up only two years later by another invasion. Piney has long vied with Hawkey as my favourite bird but I realise now that maybe I have seen enough of them…

Finding them is cool but twitching them as I did today has lost most of its charm.

I had been suitably motivated by finding the first birds of the autumn on Wednesday that I went on a long walk in the forest yesterday. I was sure I would find many flocks of Grosbeaks as well as plenty of owls (ever the optimist..) but had only a single Black Grouse for my efforts. Today though Grosbeaks were being seen everywhere around Oslo and I joined others at the restaurant at Grefsenkollen where a small flock was splitting its time equally between eating rowan seeds and then flying into spruce trees and eating buds. Maybe they see that there are so many rowan berries and realise that they have food sorted for the next 6 months and think it might start to get boring so want to spice up their diet a bit.

It was nice to see them though 😊 and especially adult males.

 

In Maridalen I failed to find any Grozzas but a flock of 35 Waxwings were nice. They were initially ignoring the rowan berries and eating aphids and flycatching but in the afternoon were wolfing down the red berries. A flock of 9 Common Scoter sleeping on the lake were my first of the autumn and raises my hopes of a Long-tailed Duck dropping in.

adult male Pine Grosbeak (konglebit) in a sea of rowan berries

an adult female or a 1cy bird

look at all the liquid oozing out of the berry

they also fed on spruce buds

Waxwings (sidensvans)

spot the Common Scoters (svartand)

a beast of a Goshawk (hønsehauk) that looked like it could eat me

I am by NO means a plane spotter but I was intrigued when I saw these 4 vapour trails. A check of Flightradar24 showed apparently no planes in the area so they had to be military

the Norwegian airforce only flies F35 and F16 so as they are clearly not the former I guess they are F16s unless they are from a foreign military. They were flying NNE at a great height and I heard nothing from them

The Grozzas are coming!

Recently there has been a little run of Great Grey Owl sightings close to Oslo. None have been in Oslo but the closest is only 7km from the county line and today I thought I would go look for that bird. It is unclear why these owls are turning up away from (known) breeding areas as it is my understanding that it is an OK rodent year in the breeding areas but as long as they turn up in Oslo over the course of the winter then I don’t particularly care why.

I didn’t manage to find the owl and have no idea if it was just moving through or whether it has settled down in the area. That disappointment was quickly forgotten though when I first heard a Pine Grosbeak flying over and then about 15 minutes later heard another and managed to get it to stop for a bit. I have been hoping for them to turn up this autumn but hearing that call and then seeing the bird was just magical. With so much for them to eat then I just hope we get a really big invasion and birds are around all winter. Both the birds were heading in a SW direction and later in the morning in Maridalen I had a flock of 10 flying over in the same direction so there is clearly something driving them to move at the moment and it may be a while before any settle, but we will see.

With the birds in Maridalen I am now up to 203 species for #Oslo2024, although I see that eBird has now incorporated the Redpoll lump so I may need to accept it and say I have seen 201 species.

 

Maridalen also had my first Oslo Waxwings of the autumn and they were surprisingly feeding on aphids in birch trees rather than rowan berries.

Pine Grosbeak (konglebit), not just my first of the autumn but also my first of the year

hopefully these trees that are nearly falling over from the weight of rowan berries will hopefully also be supporting the weight of flocks of Grozzas in the weeks and months to come

my first Oslo Waxwings (sidensvans) of the autumn could see the pictured rowan tree but were finding food in birch trees

I thought maybe they were eating buds but my pictures show they are eating aphids

there are others birds feasting on the rowan berries though including Bramblings (bjørkefink)

and Blue Tits (blåmeis). For both of these species it is the seeds rather than the flesh that is eaten

there are Common Crossbills (grankorsnebb) everywhere at the moment and it is the fresh cones on spruce trees that is attracting them. Some birds are eating pine cones though which is normally what Parrot Crossbills eat

I did have a single Parrot Crossbill (furukorsnebb) but it was eating spruce cones...

Most interest at Fornebu

Maridalen on Sunday revealed nothing of interest and it has been equally quiet both yesterday and today although there has been a notable increase in thrush numbers as birds are clearly moving towards the coast. Fieldfares dominate with Redwing and Blackbirds less than 10% of the total and Song Thrushes seem to be gone already.

Storm force winds from the south yesterday prompted me to sea gaze from Huk but despite lots of wind and white tips to the waves the only bird to suggest a movement was my first Razorbill of the autumn.

Fornebu has had a bit more to offer although it is the same variety each time with Kingfisher, Little Grebes and up to 4 Jack Snipe topping the bill and my first Waxwings of the autumn today. A Shoveler on Sunday was actually my first EVER there and a near adult White-tailed Eagle today was nice and may be a bird that is prospecting for a breeding territory in the area. With the Shoveler I have now seen 227 species at Fornebu compared to the 212 I have in Maridalen.

my first ever Shoveler (skjeand) at Fornebu

White-tailed Eagle (havørn) at Fornebu. A 4th or 5th year bird I reckon. The head looks adult like but it still has black tips to the tail feathers

Common Crossbills (grankorsnebb) are still numerous but there have been no more sightings of Two-barred around Oslo

there were lots of Fieldfare (gråtrost) moving through today including this bird with leucism

a Hawfinch (kjernebiter) in a near leave less apple tree. Frosts and lots of wind has meant that most trees have suddenly lost their leaves over just the last couple of days

spot the Kingfisher (isfugl)

here it is a slightly close range. Two birds have been ringed at Fornebu this autumn but this male (all black bill) looks to lack bling

an impressive Roe Deer buck

I've saved the snipe to last😇 Here a Common (enkeltbekkasin)

and of course some Jack (kvartbekk)

not a bird in sight but a surfer on some sort of electrically propelled board