Pyllosc party over?

It has warmed up decidedly now and temperatures are hovering around zero but with icy fog and no sun it feels far more wintery and trees are covered in a white thick frost. I have visited Fornebu the last three days with very few birds seen and no phylloscs and I fear that they have now bitten the bullet. Investigation of their favoured trees where I took pictures showing lots of insects shows that these trees are full of aphids (bladlus) so there is no shortage of insect matter although whether these are fully edible for the warblers I don’t know. I believe it is the cold and especially the long nights plus a body not evolved to survive these that has done it for them. There is some sun forecast in the days ahead though so there is a chance that they have just been hiding and will appear again – time will tell.

A Great Spotted Woodpecker was also exploiting the aphids on Tuesday, and it was rather strange to watch it feeding along thin branches. It seemed to pick off the aphids with its bill rather than use it tongue but the Grey-headed Woodpecker also showed for me again and it feeds in a very different way by using its long tongue to search for food in cracks and crannies in trees.

Two Jack and a single Common Snipe plus a Kingfisher have also revealed themselves to be surviving the cold.

the female Grey-headed Woodpecker (gråspett) is still going strong but is surprisingly difficult to find

look at how her tongue bends to follow the crack in the bark

male Great Spotted Woodpecker (flaggspett) - note all the aphids on the branch

it is not often I see an adult male Sparrowhawk (spurvehauk) this well

Long-tailed Tits (stjertmeis) are very numerous this winter with 3-4 flocks at Fornebu

Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin) #1

#2

and a Common Snipe (enkeltbekkasin)

soft focus Kingfisher (isfugl) - it looks to have an all dark bill making it a male