Glauc - finally!

Since Wednesday I have made three more attempts for the Glauc. I visited the dump, despite my best intentions, on Thursday and of course did not find it and then yesterday I decided to look for it in the late afternoon by the Opera where lots of gulls congregate to bathe. That attempt nearly killed me. I underestimated how cold it was (-11C and with a wind off the sea the windchill must have been quite a few degrees lower) and although I managed to hold out until after 3pm when gulls were heading out into the fjord to roost I again did not find it. It took me over an hour to warm up properly after this and highlighted again how much I dislike gulls and twitching.

Today we were dogging (in the purest sense of the word!) at Fornebu where birding highlight was a Chiffchaff still surviving in the reedbed. Stig Johan sent me a message that the Glauc was at the dump (does he ever not see it?) and it was three hours later when I was able to visit but don’t they say that 9 is a lucky number?? Well for me it seems to be the case as on the 9^th attempt I saw it! You would think that after all the failed attempts that I would spend a lot of time with it but to be honest this had become more about the tick (an Oslo year tick) than anything else. The bird was knee deep in rubbish, was mucky, it was cold and it smelt so I think 10 minutes of “admiration” of this high arctic species was more than enough.

Glaucous Gull (polarmåke) - a difficult bird to find for some. This is a 2nd winter. Although the plumage and bill looks very much like a 1st winter it had a pale eye which is a sign of an older bird

she (?) was trying to be dominant

and was giving this Herring Gull grief

but the Herring turned on the Glauc and the Glauc proved to be a but of a sissy

here you can see muck on its wing presumably as a result of wading around in sh*t all day

here you can see the variety of rubbish in what I had always thought was a recycling plant for cardboard

here is the rubbish pile it was on and it is visible in the picture.

and Leif the leucistic Herring Gull was also present (and can be seen in the habitat shot)

this flock of Waxwings (sidensvans) graced the garden last week