OSLO BIRDER: Colourless Mute Swan

I went for a walk in the forest on Friday on a windless day hoping to pick up woodpeckers by the sound of their tapping. I was in an area which in previous years has produced up to 5 species but this time just produced two Great Spots. There seems to be something going on in forest over the last 12 months with woodpeckers in strangely short supply. Bird of the walk was a singing, but heard only, Hazel Grouse in a usual area.

In Maridalen the Great Grey Shrike showed again but was very flighty and clearly doesn’t have a favourite area. A Mute Swan on the only area of open water is the first species of wildfowl I have seen in the valley this year and was a strange individual. Its bill was almost entirely lacking orange colour and on an overcast day it looks as though my pictures were taken in black & white. This bird had a colour ring and had been ringed just over a week previously on the fjord amongst a large group of bread eating birds. It was recorded as an adult female but without any mention of the strange bill colour. That it would then fly to Maridalsvannet on its own in January when there can not be much food for it to find is very strange but maybe it is a sick bird.

My smelly stream has again revealed a Jack Snipe but attempts to watch the bird in action again failed. I positioned myself about 20m from the bird such that I could just about see it and waited and waited but the bird would not move a millimetre. Maybe investing in a trail camera is what I need to do.