Making Guiding Great Again

Before I head to the mountains I had two guiding assignments yesterday (and had to say no to a third!).

In the morning I was guiding for various goodies around Oslo and we had an incredible day!! Long-eared Owl, Tawny Owl, Temminck’s Stint, Kingfisher, Garganey, Hazel Grouse, Parrot Crossbill, Black-throated Diver, Osprey and Pintail were among a long list of birds seen and most of them seen very well.

Bird of the day though was something much commoner - a male Common Eider on Maridalsvannet. When Jack said there’s an Eider as we drove by the lake I wondered, to be honest, what he had actually seen....and was mildly surprised when I saw there was indeed a male Eider swimming right by the road😊. Freshwater Eiders are rare although this is the third record for the lake. What made this bird so special was that it was swimming around the edge of the lake, associating with Greylag Geese, Mallards and Whooper Swans and feeding by dabbling in the shallow water and vegetation. I strongly suspect the explanation for this is that as a baby he was adopted by a Greylag Goose family on the fjord and has grown up with an identity crisis. At the moment there is a young Eider that is feeding with on short grass together with a family of Barnacne Geese at Bygdøy so this happens every now and again. It will be interesting to see how long it stays as I suspect the Greylag Geese are here to moult now.

My second guiding in the evening was focused on seeing the Tawny Owl and was also a success😊🦉.

Unusually for when I guide I took a LOT of photos and haven’t had a chance to go through them properly yet but here are a few and I will probably post more at a later date 😊

Long-eared Owlets (hornugle) - note the size difference

and #3

Tawny Owl (kattugle)

my Hazel Grouse (jerpe) was easy to find

he didn't move from this tree and I expect that the female was on eggs very close by

this male (black bill) Kingfisher (isfugl) was a big surprise and was fishing in flooded waters. It took a fish and flew off a long way with it presumably to a nest

wader passage is nearly over but we found this Temminck's Stint

a very distant male Garganey (knekkand) with a Mallard (stokkand)

Black-throated Diver (storlom)

male Eider (ærfugl) on Maridalsvannet