Back lit Beardies

My birding with buddies continued last night with an owling outing with Halvard. It was a nice night for it but our rewards were meagre with just a single Tawny Owl and a couple of late migrating Redwings calling as they headed south.

Today, was sunny and windless and there an overnight frost had left puddles with a thin layer of ice. This, I decided, would be good conditions to find out what treasures Fornebu was hiding. Two Siberian tristis Chiffchaffs were peeping in the reedbed at Storøykilen and one that I saw was wearing a ring (two birds had been blinged on Saturday). Three Water Rails were squealing in the freshwater reedbed and another two were in Koksa which is a very high count for this site.

A single pair of Bearded Tits again showed well in Koksa and I took a million and one pictures and was sure that I would get some cool back lit images but as usual the end results were not as the minds eye had pictured.

A flock of Long-tailed Tits also showed well and a contained a bird with dark head markings that I would classify as an intergrade with the continental European sub species europaeus.

I had no snipe of either species today and it could be that the frost has been the signal they needed to move on.

male Bearded Tit (skjeggmeis)

I think this is how back lit photos are supposed to be except for the fence..

Two pictures of the same Siberian tristis Chiffchaff (gransanger) showing how the appearance of this species can vary enormously

Long-tailed Tit (stjertmeis) of the northern (and expected) caudatus race

whereas the dark markings on the head suggest this bird is an intergrade with the continental europeanrace europaeus. I have observed similar birds a couple of times before including one in Maridalen

Jay (nøtteskrike)

the only photo I took on the owling outing