Kicking off 2019

The majority of Birders are rather interested in lists and a New Year means a chance to starts lots of new lists. 1 Jan therefore sees lots of birding activity and is the day when the most Magpies or Feral Pigeons are reported during the course of the year as people want to get them on their year list and then forget about them…. I am not normally available for New Years Day birding in Norway either because we are in England or have visitors from England. This year though was different, and I arranged with Andreas Gullberg that we would have a days birding with the aim to record as many species as possible in Oslo and Akershus. I had expected we would record around 60 species but in the end we only saw 45 with too much wind and bad planning on our part being the excuses but despite this we still had the highest total amongst the small number of other birders who were out on the same errand. Due to poor timing and the short day we didn’t manage to visit Maridalen (an unbelievable travesty I know) and in under an hour there today I added 7 species to those we saw yesterday.

Highlights yesterday were The Glaucous Gull and a couple of Water Rails running around on top of the snow flattened reedbed at Pollevannet.

The (now) 3cy Glaucous Gull (polarmåke) in Oslo

Oystercatcher (tjeld) at sunset at Bygdøy. This was our only wader of the day

Water Rail (vannrikse) running past the nature reserve sign at Pollevannet. This sign is in the middle of the reedbed and is only visible when snow has flattened the reeds. I have not noticed signs on the edge of the reedbed where people might actually notice them. This is unfrotunately typical of nature (mis)management in Norway

Surprise of the day was this female Wigeon (brunnakke) 

Beast socialising at Fornebu today revealed a very unseasonal Starling (stær)