OSLO BIRDER: Roadside Assistance

We finally had some reasonable weather again today with the sun breaking through. I decided on a tour de Aurskog-Høland with hopes of finding scare geese, Hawk Owls and maybe Bewick’s Swan.

I scored on the geese front with a Taiga Bean and 5 albifrons White-fronted Geese (all the Wf Geese I’ve seen recently will have been this race) and had one (only!) Hawkie but no Bewick’s and indeed not even double figures of Whoopers.

The major excitement of the day though was having to call a tow truck to remove me from a muddy field. Whilst counting geese I had wanted to get off the road so had driven onto the edge of a field. When it was time to leave though I was unable to reverse up the incline back onto the road as my front wheels (with newly mounted winter tyres) were spinning in the mud. I decided therefore to drive out into the field which was stubble to turn the car round and go forward up the incline. This nearly worked except when I had managed to turn 180 degrees I got stuck in the mud which was very wet under the thin layer of straw! My attempts to extricate myself from the embarrassing situation just involved the wheels sinking deeper into the mud. I considered walking to a nearby farm and asking for help but that was far too embarrassing so I instead rang for “roadside assistance” – well I could see the side of the road…. A most helpful assister eventually arrived and was very professional about the whole thing – no smarmy comments or looks – he just got on with his job of pulling a plonker out of a field!