Today was another interesting day of combining birding and
traffic safety, i.e I was with Turbo Zac for a tour of Østfold. We went right
down to the Swedish border to Berby on a tongue of Norway that sticks into
Sweden – there is surely a good (although most likely strange) historic
explanation for this land being Norwegian. This area often has winter records
of both Golden (kongeørn) and White-tailed Eagle (havørn) with the former being
a particularly difficult species to see in South Eastern Norway. As soon as we
arrived at 1030 after a long drive we had a young Golden Eagle riding the air
currents over a nearby ridge being mobbed by a Raven. This bird soon disappeared
but we had a couple of other distant sightings. Then after about half an hour
three White-tailed Eagles and another Golden Eagle flew up from behind a fairly
close ridge and we had five eagles in the air along with Ravens!! Quite a sight
although not particularly close and my photographic efforts were nothing to
write home about (or write on a blog about).
After a while a man pulled up and spoke to us. After some
general chat about the eagles he revealed that he puts out carcasses for them
and the birds we saw fly up had been scared by him when he went up to put out a
new carcass – no wonder this area is so popular with these majestic species.
We had an additional Golden Eagle later giving us three of
each. All the Goldens were young birds, woth two either in their 2nd or 3rd
calendar year and one in its 5th and two of the White-tailed Eagles were also young without white
in the tail whilst one was in nearly full adult plumage but still had some
black tips to the tail. There was a good deal of interaction between all the
birds with both eagle species flying together and the two young White-tails
frequently tumbled together with outstretched talons.
Other sightings during the day were a single roadside Great
Grey Shrike (varsler), an additional White-tailed Eagle at Krokstadfjord, a
female Scaup (bergand), a couple of Little Grebes (dvergdykker) and a rare
winter observation of Nutcracker (nøttekråke) – where do they all disappear to
after they have eaten all the hazel nuts in the autumn?
Back at home, whilst going to pick up my youngest I
discovered where yesterdays overflying Waxwings (sidensvans) were going. Just
150 m from the house 35 birds were devouring apples from a single tree that was
still covered in fruit despite the late date. I of course had no camera
although came so close (just a couple of metres) in the fading light that I am
hopeful that an outing tomorrow morning will give good results. Most exciting
though was hearing a tacking call from a Blackcap from a nearby evergreen tree.
I found the bird but without bins I wasn’t able to see more than that it was a
warbler but hopefully it is also still present tomorrow as it is also presumably
attracted by the apples – just a short flight to the garden.....
Some very poor photos:
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| Great Grey Shrike (varsler) in the snow |
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| Tufted Duck (toppand) and Scaup (bergand) before it got light |
Amazing flight captures.
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