OSLO BIRDER: Summer setting in

Today I spent the morning surveying breeding birds at Ekeberg. Luckily it is a lot cooler now although still with blue skies and this made the birds more active than they would otherwise have been. No real surprises so far but five singing Wood Warblers (bøksanger) was a good count and a singing Stock Dove (skogdue) was unexpected.

Birdlife in Maridalen in the afternoon was also more active than of late. The male Red-backed Shrike (tornskate) perched up with a big orange bug but soon disappeared – presumably visiting the female on the nest. The Tawny Owl (kattugle) was easy to find and from the nest box I could hear the youngsters. One of the Wrynecks (vendehals) popped its head of out of the nest hole and best of all was two singing Common Rosefinches (rosenfink). I first heard a bird I thought was a calling Greenfinch and soon saw the bird – my first thought was a very early juvenile Greenfinch (grønnfink) but then my brain started working and I realised it was a female type Rosefinch. Soon a red male turned up and was chased away by the female type. Then the red male started singing in the open and another bird responded in song. There could well have been 2 males and a female but I believe the first bird I had seen was a 1^st summer male and this was the second bird I heard singing.

No sound from the River Warbler in the middle of the day but he was singing at 11pm last night.