Yesterday was a sunny but cold day with an unpleasant
northerly wind. Today was without wind and temperatures warmed through the day
from -6C to around zero with snow now falling which will turn into rain
overnight.
Yesterday I checked out the Glomma and Aurskog Høland but
found much less than last week with the cold spell clearly having forced birds
to look for more appealing sites
.
Today was a bit better and I chose a trip to the Drøbak
area. The sea was calm and revealed lots of seaduck: 300 plus Eiders, 80 Common
Scoter and 40 Velvet Scoter. As is normally the case the Velvet Scoters were
dominated by adult males whereas probably all the Common Scoters were 1st
winter birds – it is interesting that the different age groups of these two
species choose to have such different wintering areas (the adult Common Scoters
winter further south but I am not sure where the young Velvet Scoters spend the
winter – further north?). Amongst the duck were a stonking 11 Common Seals
which is by far the highest count reported for Akershus. There was a lot of
play or possibly courtship amongst them.
Quality photos have been a rare commodity recently with birds at great distance, heat haze and too bright light giving me problems.
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| male Common Eider (ærfugl) |
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| a 2cy male Eider and an adult male |
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| 4 of the 11 seals |
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| another a failed picture but this moose (elg) was one of three I saw in Maridalen which is my first sighting of the year. The mild winter with little snow had meant that they could find food deep in the forest but as the winter wears on there is less food to find plus the recent snow has made conditions more challenging so they are drawn to agricultural land. |
This video really only gives you an idea of how far away the Purple Sands and seals were
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| even if I found no Bean Geese along the Glomma River yesterday it was a lovely day! |
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| I'm not quite sure what caused these circular clouds - maybe the Almighty was blowing smoke rings? |
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