Saturday morning

I write this on Saturday morning whilst enjoying a cup of coffee, silence in the house and the smell of fresh pain au chocolat. What I am not doing is watching birds in the fjord from Halvard’s boat (thanks for the invite) or watching the first Pine Grosbeaks (messages coming in from just north east of Oslo). But the day is still young and that dog will need walking somewhere…

The last few days have seen changing weather with lots of fog one day and then glorious sun the next. In the fog on Wednesday I heard a for me, unknown call emanating from Maridalsvannet and later in the day when the fog had lifted I found an adult and juv Red-throated Diver which matches well with the call. It is very late for them to be here and suggests a very late breeding further north.

Yesterday, I spent time in the forest yesterday ahead of some guiding on Monday and had hoped to find the first Grosbeak of the autumn but had to content myself with Hazel Grouse and Pygmy Owl – which did make me very content 😊

The Scaup remains at Østensjøvannet attracting a lot of attention from photographers who have never photographed the species before and it must be the most popular bird on local social media at the moment despite it being very grotty. The Smew seem to have moved on though but a Guillemot amongst the Coots and Mallards was an interesting sight.

male Hazel Grouse (jerpe)

singing in the shade

Pygmy Oowl (spurveugle)

note the Blue Tit (blåmeis) behind it. It was the noise of tits that alerted me to the owl

1cy female Scaup (bergand)

I have always maintained that Scaup do not have white undertail coverts. Looks like I may have been wrong..

a Buzzard (musvåk) in Maridalen - it looks like birds will spend the winter again

an out of place Guillemot (lomvi)

it was calling as they often do

Long-tailed Tit (stjertmeis) which tried to take my attention when I was watching the Hazel Grouse