Spring -what spring?

Winter really roared its snowy head yesterday with a good 30cm of snow falling and the trees are still decked with all that white stuff today. Not surprisingly there have been no noticeable new arrivals since my last post except for Whooper Swans arriving at Maridalsvannet and despite it being frozen they have hung around on the ice for a few days.

I have not visited the Taiga Beans but have kept tabs on them via their GPS plots. Despite the plummeting temperatures they remained on the same field where I saw them last and continued roosting on the river (which I expect had frozen again) however yesterday’s heavy snow was too much and after initially flying from their roost to the field this morning I see that they decided at 10am to head about 65km south to a site they have occasionally used before. By my calculations they must have flown at over 80km/h. It will of course be interesting to see how long they stay before returning north.

Otherwise I paid another trip to the Hazel Grouse but after yesterday’s snow I think it will be a few weeks before I visit again and today a Pygmy Owl was sunning itself by the road.

male Hazel Groise (jerpe) singing. For once a he was just about in the sunlight

the feathers clearly act as very good insulation

Pygmy Owl (spurveugle)

these 2 Little Grebes (dvergdykker) in the harbour had to content with icebergs

Red Squirrel