Last Hawkie for a while?

With a daughter who has just tested positive for Covid I am now in two weeks quarantine. I have also been tested and if I am positive I will face 10 days isolation. In Norway quarantine allows you to still go out for a walk as long as you avoid others but isolation means staying inside. Although I have no symptoms the chances must be high that I have caught it from my daughter so I may not be out for a while….

So, what was perhaps my last birding for a while saw me in Maridalen where I got my fix of Hawkie and saw two Common Buzzards. I also had a rare sighting of a Peregrine over the house but with little else showing it is perhaps not the worst time to be stuck inside.

Whilst watching the Hawk Owl a Goshawk called close-by and it was amazing to watch how alert the owl became and that his body shape changed completely.

Hawk Owl (haukugle) striking two very different poses. To the right is the Goshawk pose

Hawkie in habitat

and looking very fat - the bird is nearly all feathers that it can blow up presumably to trap air for insulation

Common Buzzard (musvåk). This pale bird is very distinctive

and this darker bird is also distinctive in that it is unusually dark