OSLO BIRDER: Lapping it up!

Norway is in a near total lock down due to the Corona virus and the government here is choosing to deal with the pandemic in a far more severe way than for example Sweden, the UK and USA. Almost everything is closed and companies are going bankrupt but luckily only three people have died so far. All schools were closed from Friday and in addition all pupils, staff and any parents who visited the school of Jr Jr (luckily not me or Mrs OB) are in home quarantine for 2 weeks after one person at the school has tested positive. One visible side effect of all this is that people are going walking in the countryside when they have nothing else to do and Maridalen on Saturday had more people than I can ever remember seeing before.

The Birds Gods are obviously feeling generous in this otherwise testing time and have instructed that GG should be made freely available. Two different individuals have been selling their wares on the streets of Oslo this weekend and we have just stumbled upon them whilst our walking ourselves and the Beast. Which brings me to LAPPING it up.

Today in quite horrible weather: rain, strong winds and temperatures only a few degrees over zero we were in Maridalen where we drove a few LAPs of the Dale, bumped into a LAPpugle (Great Grey Owl), saw a LAPfiskand (Smew) and had our Finnish LAPphund (The Beast) with us. I just need to have a LAPdance to complete the set 😊 (unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately?, Mrs OB is not a regular reader of this drivel).

I also had my first Lesser Black-backed Gull and the first Great Crested Grebe in Oslo for the year today so more signs of Spring.

My two favourite birds - on Saturday

and Sunday's GG with Jr Jr and The Beast. A LAPpugle and a LAPphund

Jr Jr, Jr and LAPpugle

today's GG

I had previously thought I could use the spiky haircut to individually identify these owls but realise now that it is just something that happens when they get wet