Finches

Just a little bit of birding today but I scored with my first Red-throated Pipit (lappiplerke) for Maridalen. As usual it was just a fly over calling bird which came over after a Meadow Pipit (heipiplerke) and a Tree Pipit (trepiplerke) making the detection of its call even easier. Otherwise there were a lot of finches in Maridalen with at least 400 feeding Bramblings (bjørkefink), 3 flyover Hawfinches (kjernebiter) and a smattering of Chaffinches (bokfink), Siskins (grønnsisik) and Redpolls (gråsisik). A Sparrowhawk (spurvehauk) was interested in the finches whilst a young male Goshawk (hønsehauk) tried his luck, unsuccessfully, on some Crows.

Two adult Black-throated Divers on the lake were still in fine summer plumage.

A quick check of Fornebu in the afternoon revealed some Wheatears (steinskvett) and a couple of Whinchats (buskskvett) enjoying the warm weather. Warblers have suddenly become very scarce and I had only a single Blackcap (munk) in Maridalen and Whitethroat (tornsanger) at Fornebu.

Elsewhere in Norway, Yellow-browed Warblers (gulbrynsanger) are starting to turn up which helps increase the excitement levels before my trip to Værøy from 23-27 September. Hopefully this trip will be even more successful than last years.