Bygdøy

Another day of great weather for being out but the overnight frosts seem to be putting a real dampener on migration with no bird seen or heard migrating overhead (the same as yesterday). We started at Huk, Bygdøy with a flat sea that revealed three Common Scoter (svartand) feeding close in including two young males slowly attaining adult plumage, 6 Long-tailed Ducks (havelle) far out as usual, my first Shelduck (gravand) of the year, 2 Oystercatchers (tjeld), Red-breasted Mergansers (siland) and feeding Cormorants (storskarv) and a seal which really seemed to struggle with a large fish it had caught.

After this we went looking for a Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin) that has been frequenting a ditch north of Sandvika. We didn’t find it although footprints frozen into the mud looked to be of the right size. A Common Snipe (enkeltbekkasin) that we flushed here was my first of the year though.

With one dip on my conscience there was no harm in risking another so we went looking for Two-barred Crossbill (båndkorsnebb) in Fetsund where 7 birds had been seen yesterday and then again today. We arrived, found the obvious and cone laden larch tree where they had been, spoke to a lady who had seen them low down only an hour before but of course they did not show for us in the hour we waited. Whooper Swans (sangsvane) and Goosander (laksand) were some compensation.

Long-tailed Ducks in flight. There was a male (probably a young one without a long tail) and it looks like this is the bird that is hidden such that only its wing is visible

 

Two young male Common Scoters coming into adult plumage alongside a female Goldeneye

Take off for a male Red-breasted Merganser

young Mute Swan

the DFDS Danish ferry entering Oslo

 


this Siskin (grønnsisik) was the highlight in a larch tree that had earlier held 2BCs