Incidental weekend Oslo birds

The Desert Warbler continues to survive in the far from desert like conditions of southern Norway but my plans of twitching it tomorrow look to be very poorly laid plans as the first snow of the winter in forecast tomorrow and quite a lot of it. This will mean there will be chaos on the roads (don’t believe everything that is written in British media for example about how well countries like Norway cope with snow in stark contrast to how badly the British cope with it – the first big dump every year seems to come as a surprise to both motorists and the authorities and always causes chaos although it only takes a day or so before calm and control is restored) quite soon the  plus I would imagine there is a strong chance the bird itself will cop it.

Unsurprisingly the bird has been very popular but has proven to be a hazardous bird to twitch. Yesterday very high tides turned the peninsular it was frequenting into an island and a number of birders got very wet and one who slipped will be buying a new camera….

I have just had a couple of walks in and around Oslo this weekend in what has been continued fantastic weather. A Redwing was a surprising late record with most clearing out in October and the Great Grey Shrike is still finding conditions to its liking in Maridalen. There was a heavy frost overnight which caused a southerly movement of Pink-footed Goose over Oslo which was heard by the missus early this morning. Normally these geese have left Norway by this time but the mild autumn and lack of snow means they have hung around in various places further north in the country and the birds moving over Oslo this morning were probably from a flock of 1500 that has been feeding in Oppland county just north of here.

the Great Grey Shrike (varsler) in the same birch tree where I have photographed it on a couple of times previously

Redwing (rødvingetrost)

Common (mealy) Redpoll (gråsisik). This (sub)species / form doesn't breed around Oslo where it is Lesser Redpoll (brunsisik) that breeds but is a winter visitor in varying numbers (some years in flocks of many hundred and in other years nearly absent)

Siskins (grønnsisik) and Common Redpolls