OSLO BIRDER: Spring. What spring?

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked what tomorrow (today) would bring. Snow was not what I had hoped for and completely changed the birding landscape. Per Christian and I repeated our route from yesterday but had much less to show for our efforts. Falling snow and icy temperatures in Maridalen resulted in just 4 Skylarks remaining from all our good birds yesterday although one did sing during a pause in the snow.

At Fornebu we did have the shrike, two Long-tailed Tits (stjertmeis) and a nice encounter with a pair of Bearded Tits (skjeggmeis). We heard them calling in the reeds and made the classic mistake of thinking they were 10-15 metres out. They seemed to move quickly through the reeds and then became quiet. I again heard them calling and tried to locate them. I was looking out into the reeds when I noticed a movement on the ground only 3 metres away. Sure enough it was a Beardie! There was a pair and they kept on the ground at all times and were scuttling around on the path side of the fence. They kept amongst the base of the reeds so were difficult to take pictures of. They called frequently in a very quiet manner and occasionally loudly when they had lost contact with each other but if you didn’t know they were so close you could easily think they were much further out.