Snow was falling all morning today but it is very dry airy
snow so the depth of snow on the ground is not that much.
I was not confident of seeing much but gave Maridalen and
Fornebu a try. Maridalen was very quiet except for a large flock of 26
Bullfinches (dompap) in a tree top close to a garden where there is a feeding
station.
At Fornebu there were no small finches to grill but the
Bearded Tits (skjeggmeis) were incredibly cooperative. I stopped at the same
place where I saw them a couple of days ago and they were feeding in almost
exactly the same reeds. Nearly completely silent as usual it was a bit of luck
that I saw them although they did feed often in the tops of the reeds making
them fairly visible. I watched them for close to an hour and a half and not once
did they fly over the reeds or give calls that would have been audible over 30
metres away (and frequently less than 10m). During the whole period of time
they kept with an area of reeds no more than 25
and
fed nearly constantly. As I have mentioned before, when they arrived in the
late autumn they called a lot and loudly, and responded to playback. Now they
are calling infrequently, quietly, and do not respond to playback. When they
first arrived they were presumably keen to find out if there were any of their
kin here, food was perhaps plentiful and they were unsure as to whether they
were going to stay here or disperse further hence they were noisy and
inquisitive. Now they are here for the winter, have sussed out it is only the
six of them, and they need to conserve energy in the cold. Their calling is
just for communication within their small group. When they did call it was often
when they dropped down to the base of the reeds where they were rooting around and
seemingly drinking. In this respect they are identical to the Two-barred
Crossbill flock which was also nearly silent until they were about to fly down
to eat snow (drink).
The flock consists of three males and three females although
it is not clear whether th
ey are three pairs. Only one of the females is ringed
and one, possibly two, of the males. The ringer of the Bearded Tits at Øra
reckons he ringed ca.90% of the birds there so even though this would be the
most likely source of the Fornebu birds the fact that only a quarter (possibly
a third) of the birds here are ringed suggests a more distant origin.
At home a flock of 30 Waxwing (sidensvans) flew over and the
Robin and partially leucistic Fieldfare were still present.
I fired off close to 400 pictures of the Beardies and have
spent quite a lot of time deleting the vast majority. Choosing the best ones
was also not easy. The light was poor and the fastest ISO I was able to use was
1600.
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| all six Bearded Tits (skjeggmeis) are visible here..... |
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| perhaps a bit easier to see all six here..... |
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| and four here..... |
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| and three here..... |
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| and two here.... |
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| a female on her own |
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| a female. Note how tiny their wings are |
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| finally a male |
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