Bluethroats

Finally they came. After seeing a report of 3 Bluethroats at Fornebu yesterday I had a smidge of confidence that I would finally get to take some shots of this, one of my favourite, species on autumn migration (I have after all managed a fair few quite acceptable shots on the breeding grounds this year).

It took a bit of searching and for a long while I thought that a bird that flew out of some high weeds before promptly disappearing was going to be my only observation. Luckily I was wrong though. We were treated to a fantastic display by a flock of them! I first discovered one bird and then quickly realised there were many. We had four together and in total at least 8 birds. One in particular gave an amazing performance when it did some sort of cross between a dust bath and a sun bath just metres away. I took around 400 pictures but amazingly none have come out as sharp as I would have expected. I think the problem was purely with exposure as the bird was exposed in bright sharp sunlight with shadow behind and I just didn’t have the camera settings right.

There was precious little else to see with no Yellow Wagtails left and just a handful of Willow Warblers but one Red-backed Shrike and a Redstart are hanging on.

I squeezed in 30 minutes raptor watching in Maridalen and ended up with a single Common and Hone Buzzard thermalling together. Luckily I had the ‘scope with me as without it they would have just been 2 buzzard sp.

Bluethroat (blåstrupe)



 

in neutral light (and close up) I was able to get a sharp photo

 

catching a small moth

and swallowing it

two together

the rufous edges to the tertial and coverts should make this a 1 cy bird and with so much red and blue on the throat a male. Strangely all the birds I saw well were in this plumage

dust or sun bathing?

 

how dare you look at me in this state?

here it has pulled up its eye lid (for potection?)

 

out in the open

 

Wheatear (steinskvett) left with Bluethroat



Three Linnets (tornirisk)

a Reed Warbler (rørsanger)