OSLO BIRDER: Note to self: don’t forget the birds

Whilst my attentions may have turned to bugs there really is no reason to forget about birds. Late on Monday evening a Bar-headed Goose was found at Maridalsvannet. This species has recently and with retrospective effect been moved from Category E (escape) to Category C (self sustaining wild population of a species that stems from escapes). The birds seen in Norway do not breed here but come most likely from a large feral population in Holland. What is important with this change in category is that C birds count on your official list whereas E birds don’t (although it might be different in eBird..😉). I had seen a bird at Østensjøvannet a number of years ago which had now appeared on my list but not in the Dale. On reading the message I picked up by bins and started heading for the door but then checked myself… it could wait until tomorrow. Well I could wait but the goose couldn’t. Despite there being way over a hundred each of Greylag and Canada Geese and 7 hybirds between the two plus singles of Barnacle and Pink-footed the Bar-headed had done a bunk the next morning.

Well that was one species that didn’t get added to my Maridalen list but it didn’t take long for a new opportunity. This afternoon Milos P sent me a picture of a tern from Maridalsvannet with a question of what it was. The picture was a back of camera shot and I was not sure what it was but balance of probability said Common Tern but one with an unusually dark bill and short tail…. I asked to be sent some proper pictures which I got a couple of hours later whilst I was firing up the BBQ and opening a beer. The bird looked very interesting but I stuck to probability but as more photos were sent it became clear that probability cannot be relied upon. It was a Gull-billed Tern!!!

My consumption of a beer (good old Nordlands Pils) meant I could not drive and the food on the BBQ had to looked after but luckily for me Andreas G picked me up an hour later. We arrived to find other birders who had seen the bird very well but a minute before we arrived the bird had flown around a corner and out of sight. It took half an hour for it to reappear when I found it in the scope at the other end of the lake but it then flew back to us and showed really well. It was hawking insects like a Black Tern and we never once saw it land. At one point it called and then circled up and up until we lost sight of it but 10 minutes later it was back. What a bird and my 205th species in Maridalen, 248th in Oslo and 322nd in Norway.

Gull-billed Tern (sandterne) - a COMPLETELY unexpected species to turn up in Maridalen EVER. Also very unexpected now in Norway as there have been no records yet this year of either Black or Caspian Tern in the whole country