Stonechat, Iceland Gull and Hazel Grouse

Winter has returned and spring migration, what little of it there was, has stopped up. Temperatures are below zero 24/7 for the next week and will fall as low as -15C although no new snow is forecast.

I have still had some very good birding since my last post and really should blog more often so as to avoid such long posts.

On Friday I headed into the forest and despite the snow coming up to my knees in places I was able to get around quite easily and a close encounter with “my” Hazel Grouse pair was the my reward.

At the weekend Jr Jr was competing in a competition in Jessheim which is close to the Taiga Beans and with long gaps between her appearances I was able to pop down on both days. The flock on Saturday was unchanged from the 87 birds and 2 Pink-feet I had seen previously but on Sunday there were 86 Taigas and 3 Pink-feet, go figure.. I was able to read a leg ring (Y6) which I hadn’t seen before and also noted two birds with just metal rings, one on its left leg and the other on its right. There must be birds that have lost both collars and plastic colour leg rings. With the winter weather this week I will expect the river to (re)freeze over so it will be interesting to see if the geese head south for a bit.

Monday started well with a twitch of a Stonechat at Østensjøvannet that had been found on Saturday. It was a nice male that seemed to find some food but which will also suffer in the coming week if it tries to hang around

And today I made a short visit to the waterfront in Oslo to twitch an adult Iceland Gull which is the first time I have seen this age close to Oslo.

male Hazel Grouse (jerpe)

low shutter speeds in the daak forest can lead to some action picture

here it was about to nip off and eat the bid

Taiga Bean Geese

Y6

3 Pink-feet in this picture

male Stonechat

a very photogenic bird

spot the adult Iceland Gull (grønlandsmåke)

the first Whooper Swan (sangsvane) of the year back on Maridalsvannet. Is this one half of the breeding pair meaning perhaps that the other bird is no more?

the Great Grey Shrike (varsler) still turns up occasionally

Goldeneye (kvinand)

bathing Starlings (stær)