Who needs Lista?!?

After the excitement of Lista I am now back to joys of birding around Oslo – and you know what? Lista pales in comparison!!

Yesterday I took another visit to the Taiga Bean Geese that I had also seen on Friday. Numbers had increased to 51 (I hope there are more to come) with the tagged pair 27&29 having two young in tow which was good confirmation of the belief that they had nested successfully based on interpretation of the tag data from the breeding grounds. In addition I had two neck collared birds (6S and S8) but views were too distant and obscured on the peat bog for me to make out if there were any other family parties. I also had an early Great Grey Shrike which I have now had the last three years whilst counting the Beans showing that this site has a special attraction for the species (very few are recorded so early in September).

I also checked out Svellet yesterday and had a very early White-fronted Goose although this could well be a bird that has summered amongst Greylag Geese in southern Scandinavia.

Today I thought that there was enough rain that a trip to Årnestangen might pay dividends. It was wet (both me and my optics can testify to that) but there were waders. 216 Dunlin and 66 Ringed Plover ensured that there was volume and 3 Curlew Sandpipers including an adult, 4 Little Stints, 4 Bar-tailed Godwits, a Redshank, a late Wood Sandpiper and a few Ruff and Snipe gave a bit of variety. The only raptor I had was a soggy young Peregrine but that was hardly surprising given the weather. 90 Pochard and 4 Pintail were the excitement on the duck front.

Lower water levels plus the rain meant that some of the waders came much closer than normal at Årnestangen today and it was even possible with pictures that can just about qualify as record shots ;-)

adult Curlew Sandpiper (tundrasnipe)

Two young Curlew Sandpipers with Dunlin

Two young Dunlin (myrsnipe)

a juvenile Little Stint (dvergsnipe)

adult european White-fronted Goose (tundragås)

Taiga Bean Geese (taigasædgås)

27 or 29 (can't remember which) with two untagged youngsters 

the geese in their true habitat

S8 top left follwed by 27 & 29 and their young

and from Friday

27 & 29 with young plus two other birds

the geese on the small forest bog they found on Friday

and here are 27&29 with young from yesterday