Its Pallid

Today is Local Election Day in Norway which means schools close (strange given that so many parties campaign on the importance of education) and in many places you cannot buy alcohol although in other places the current ruling party allows you to – presumably their spin doctors have done the research and have found out that you are more likely to vote for their party if half-cut.

The kids are therefore at home today and this combined with rain means no birding for my part.

 I did go out yesterday evening to look for the Pallid Harrier. When I arrived just after 5pm there were already other birders there including some on deck chairs – clearly expecting a long wait. And a long and fruitless wait it proved to be. I stayed until it was too dark to make out any plumage features on harriers arriving too roost but although I had 8 separate sightings of ringtail harriers all were Hen Harriers (although one was too distant to be sure). There were a minimum of three individual birds but quite likely more which in itself is a quite exceptional record in these parts. The birds seemed to be using a very large area and were hunting more over farmland than marshland. The Pallid Harrier was last reported at 0830 on Sunday (although unfortunately there seems to be a growing number of people who twitch but don’t report themselves so the bird may well have been seen later) and it seems that it continued on its southerly migration during the day which would have been a good decision as the Oslo area is about to experience a lot of rain.

 

1cy male (pale eye) Hen Harrier (myrhauk)