Sunday driving & twitching

A new Sunday tradition may be in the making with it becoming twitching Sunday in which Jr gets to practice her driving by driving me to a rare bird. The most important thing to make this into a tradition now is that rare birds continue to found on Sunday mornings… That did indeed happen yesterday (following on from the Cattle Egret last week) with the Baikal Teal being refound 13 days after it was discovered and it was reported to have come a long was out of eclipse plumage so sounded like it would be worth seeing again. Since I saw it last I have had it in mind when visiting Nordre Øyeren and Østensjøvannet and it was in Nordre Øyeren that it was refound. Not amongst flocks of shy Teal or Wigeon but amongst Mallards (again) although in its favour there were also Shoveler, Pintail, Wigeon and Teal associating with the same Mallards. It truly looked like a male Baikal Teal now although may need another two weeks to lose all traces of the eclipse plumage. Hopefully it will hang around for a bit although winter arrived in force today and my attempts to see it again were hampered by a blizzard.

I checked up on both the Wheatear and Tree Pipit yesterday morning and both were going strong despie it being -1C but the blizzard today seemed to have put an end to the Tree Pipit in Maridalen although it may just have been clever enough to hide away somewhere. The terrible weather will continue tomorrow but Wednesday should allow me to have a better search for it. Best bird in Maridalen was an Arctic Redpoll with a 100 strong flock of Common Redpolls (there was also at least 1 Lesser Redpoll amongst them) but rarest bird was House Sparrow with a pair amongst a 100 strong flock of Tree Sparrows. Have they been here all the time since I first saw some in August?). The sparrows were curiously finding something to eat in the snow on the road. I have no idea what it was and the road had not been salted so it was not that they were looking for. I have also put up some fat balls in the hope of attracting the female Grey-headed Woodpecker that has been seen a handful of times over the last week although not by me yet.

the Baikal Teal (gulkinnand) was a bit too distant to see well but using the bazooka with 600m lens and 10x digital zoom it was OK to film it

this is a screen grab from the video, and here is the video:

Today's Arctic Redpoll (polarsisik) - not often I see them in Oslo and even rarer in Maridalen

a Goshawk (hønsehauk) in the snow

Tree Sparrows (pilfink) finding nutrition in the snow on the road in Maridalen and there were 2 locally rare House Sparrows (gråspurv) with them

Tree Sparrows

there were also a few Yellowhammers (gulspurv) in the Dale. Could this be the winter to find something rarer amongst them?

The Tree Pipit (trepiplerke) on Sunday when it did look less energetic than the previous days

and its preferred area today when surprisingly enough I did not find it

The Wheatear (steinskvett) on Sunday. I reckon this bird will survive the snow a little bit longer than the pipit but did not look for it today

the Wheatear seemed curious about a Wren (gjerdesmett) that flew in

and the Wren was equally curious about the Wheatear. Both are insect eaters but the Wren searches in places the Wheatear doesn't or couldn't which may explain why it has evolved to stay in Oslo for the winter

A bit of this a quite a bit of that

Yesterday was a very productive day whereas today in similar weather conditions was spookily quiet. Yesterday I was curious to see if both the Wheatear and Tree Pipit were still present and indeed they were with the pipit also being there today when I walked the Mrs and the Beast. Both these birds are around 2 and a half weeks later than the previous latest records in Oslo and although both look healthy it is not likely they will survive the negative temperatures and snow forecast for next week.

In Maridalen yesterday the Great Grey Shrike and a Pygmy Owl (I think there are at least three birds in the valley at the moment) gave a great showing although I saw neither today. The shrike did its usual act of sitting high and open but this individual seems to be less shy than most individuals of its species and allows fairly close approach. It also looks to be an adult male and move widely around the valley with me seeing it at locations 2km apart yesterday. The owl though did not sit openly but chose rather to perch half way up trees although was not shy at all.

The shrike and owl also met and did not seem to enjoy each others company one bit although I couldn’t quite make out what was going on as they ended up in a bush. What must have been the shrike was very vocal with a call I have not heard before and they ended up exploding out of the bush and perching separately with I think the shrike being the aggressor.

There are hardly any birds on the lake at the moment but the Razorbill and Common Scoter are hanging on. 

Pygmy Owl (spurveugle)

here it is stretching just before flying and shows off its claws

looking for food

deciding if I am food

tiny wings

but important to take care of them

through the thermal imager you see that the face and eyes and also down the chest where the feathers split are the biggest causes of heat loss

Great Grey Shrike (varsler)

The Tree Pipit (trepiplerke)

and the Wheatear (steinskvett)