2023 The Year That Was part II

 July

July is high summer and this year I was even more focused on bugs than ever before (the bug year will get its own post later on) and seem to have recorded very few birds although I did spend a lot of time with the breeding Hobbies. At the end of the month Red-backed Shrike families became very visible and I found 4 pairs with young which is I think the best ever result.

juvenile Red-backed Shrike (tornskate)

female Hobby (lerkefalk) on the nest

August

August was taken up primarily with the breeding Hobbies and Honey Buzzards but I did fit in plenty of other birding. August is always good month in Maridalen for returning migrants and birds like Bluethroat and Yellow Wagtail were regular. A juvenile Cuckoo was a rare sighting here and when it got chased by a juvenile Sparrowhawk I was lucky to get a much acclaimed picture of the two together.

Undoubted rarity of the month was a family of House Sparrows in Maridalen which was my first sighting ever (and I’ve been going there for 22 years!).

Årnestangen was flooded most of the month so had little to offer in the way of waders although Fornebu picked up the slack slightly.

At the end of the month the Taiga Beans returned and it was suddenly autumn!

Sparrowhawk (spurvehauk) and Cuckoo (gjøk)

Great White Egret (egretthegre)

male House Sparrow (gråspurv) with Tree Sparrows (pilfink) - a Maridalen tick

young Bluethroat (blåstrupe) on autumn migration in Maridalen

juvenile Hobby

adult male Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) on the nest with one of two downy young visible

September

Fornebu gave me Little Stint and Curlew Sandpiper which were my only records for the year and also my first ever at the locality. An adult Med Gull then delighted a different places in the fjord and I followed up the Honey Buzzards until they left on the 14th. But September was all about going to Værøy for the first time since pre Covid and the expectations were fulfilled although it is said that my expectations are quite low (hearing the call of Yellow-browed Warbler does it for me 😊)

Værøy did not deliver any major rarities but Red-flanked Bluetail, Olive-backed Pipit, Little Bunting, Richard’s Pipit and the afore mentioned Y-b Warbler made me a happy bunny. In addition there was an unprecedented arrival of Rough-legged Buzzards, lots of Jack Snipe, Arctic Redpolls, and a Hawkie.

Curlew Sandpiper (tundrasnipe)

adult Med Gull (svartehavsmåke)

juvenile Honey Buzzard

Rough-legged Buzzard (fjellvåk) with rat on Værøy

Richard's Pipit (tartapiplerke)

Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin)

Yellow-browed Warbler (gulbrynsanger)

Olive-backed Pipit (sibirpiplerke)

Red-flanked Bluetail (blåstjert)

Arctic Redpoll (polarsisik)

Little Bunting (dvergspurv)

October

October is the month for mega rare vagrants but the month started for me with the mega sedentary Siberian Jays in Beitostølen. Evening trips with the thermal camera revealed good numbers of Woodcocks in Maridalen although still no owls other than Tawny.

Fornebu illustrated that you don’t need to travel to an offshore island for a vagrant with Yellow-browed Warbler and a heard only probably Olive-backed Pipit and Bearded Tits turned up in good numbers. I have got into the habit of trying to find Tengmalm’s Owl in October and I had a few sessions this year but was only successful once which was of course the time I wasn’t trying to show others…

The rarest bird of the year, although definitely not my bird of the year was an adult male Baikal Teal that first turned up on an urban lake in eclipse plumage and then was refound in better habitat with Mallards a couple of weeks later as it was well on its way into its proper, and quite amazing, plumage. Non-ringed it will be tickable but didn’t give a wow feeling. A second twitch in the month gave me my first Norwegian Cattle Egret and I almost started liking twitching 😊

Pygmy Owl became regular in Maridalen from the end of the month and for the rest of the year but it was a record late Tree Pipit that stole the show and in Sørkedalen there was also Oslo’s latest ever Wheatear but a fall of snow right at the end of the month seemed to seal the fate of both birds and they were not seen afterwards.

Siberian Jay (lavskrike)

Yellow-browed Warbler at Fornebu

nocturnal Woodcock (rugde) in Maridalen

male Bearded Tit (skjeggmeis)

and female

Tengmalm's Owl (perleugle(

adult male Baikal Teal (gulkinnand) in eclipse

and two weeks later starting to look the part

Cattle Egret (kuhegre)

Pygmy Owl (spurveugle)

record late Tree Pipit (trepiplerke)

and record late Wheatear (steinskvett)

November

November is rarely a particularly exciting birding month but this year was above expectations. Grey-headed Woodpeckers in Maridalen, Waxwings, Bearded Tits, Snow Buntings, Jack Snipe, Pygmy Owls and visits to my Hazel Grouse kept things interesting and colourful. And then there were some proper scarce birds in Maridalen with Great White Egret, Black Redstarts and an adult White-tailed Eagle on the deck plus the House Sparrows were still around!

Snow Buntings (snøspurv) in the snow

Two Jack Snipe at the beginning of the month but that was to be my last sighting

only Maridalen's second ever Great White Egret was dropped in very briefly

and on the same day the Dale's fourth Black Redstart (svartrødstjert) also turned up

it is difficult to get too much of Hazel Grouse (jerpe)

Grey-headed Woodpecker (gråspett)

Pygmy Owl with dinner

this winters Great Grey Shrike (varsler) in Maridalen is unusually confiding

adult White-tailed Eagle

December

This December was not to be the one with any of the Taiga Trio of years gone by so no Piney, no Hawkie and no GGO. Maridalen continued to offer up its new, but less exciting trio of Pygmy Owl, Grey-headed ‘pecker and Great Grey Shrike but I couldn’t find anything more exciting. A Little Auk and a Shag at the docks were Oslo quality though.

Little Auk (alkekonge)

Waxwings (sidensvans)

Shag (toppskarv) and Razorbill (alke)

2023 The Year That Was part I

I write these review posts mostly for my own benefit as it is nice to go back remember what has happened the last year so please bear with me 😊

The year was pretty good birding wise but nothing exceptional. I added two species to my Maridalen list, one the ultra-rare Gull-billed Tern and the other the ultra-common and long overdue House Sparrow.  My Oslo list also grew by two with a Broad-billed Sandpiper on Gressholmen as well as the G-b Tern and my Norwegian list grew by three with in addition to the tern a Baikal Teal and Cattle Egret.

Of the birds mentioned so far I only found the House Sparrow but I did manage to find some good birds during the course of the year including Caspian Tern, Great White Egret, Olive-backed Pipit although I feel that my efforts are not rewarded as much as I could hope for.

January

The year started pretty well with up close and personal meetings with Hawk Owl and Jack Snipe and then from the 10^th I spent a lot of time with a roost of Long-eared Owls that provided much entertainment. They did precious little during the daytime but some nocturnal visits revealed hunting birds.

Bearded Tits also entertained throughout the month and were extremely popular with the photographers.

Hawk Owl (haukugle)

Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin)

Bearded Tit (skjeggmeis)

Pygmy Owl (spurveugle)

Long-eared Owl (hornugle)

LEOs vary a lot in size and colour

February

The Long-eared Owls were my main priority but towards the end of the month the first spring migrants started turning up including a record early arrival of the Scottish Taiga Bean Geese.

Taiga Bean Geese (taiga sædgjess)

the northern lights in Maridalen

an owl and a moon

March

The month started well with Oslo twitches to see Stonechat and Iceland Gull. The former is becoming almost expected in the spring whereas the latter remains a rarity and an adult as this bird as even more so.  Winter then returned but at the end of the month I twitched out of, but close to, Oslo for a magnificent male Black-throated Thrush and a Bewick’s Swan.

Stonechat (svartstrupe)

adult Iceland Gull (grønnlandsmåke)

Bewick's Swan (dvergsvane)

Black-throated Thrush (svartstrupe)

Hazel Grouse (jerpe) showed well in the month

April

The month started slowly with lots of snow still on the ground. I visited the Taiga Beans a few more times and towards the middle of the month they were joined by a family of White-fronted Geese.

Hen Harriers were perhaps bird of the month with a number seen migrating over Maridalen and best of all a male that stopped to hunt. Lapland Buntings turned up twice in Maridalen including a flock of 6 birds with the males singing being a real highlight.

family of White-fronted Geese (tundragås)

4 male Lapland Buntings (lappspurv)

male Hen Harrier (myrhauk)

May

The month started with ice still on Maridalsvannet and 1 May was a disappointing day but things quickly warmed up after that and there was quite a rush of the commoner migrants.

On 6^th May a male Pochard x Tufted Duck hybrid arrived on Maridalsvannet. Given that Pochard has never been observed there I felt a bit cheated to get this hybrid but it was a very cool bird.

Fornebu delivered a bird that I long to find in Maridalen with a showy Hoopoe and a trip south of Oslo gave a large trip of Dotterel. Towards the end of the month a weekend at the cabin at Hulvik gave me an incredibly distant male Surf Scoter, a bird which had been seen migrating further south and which I knew could come my way.

Firecrests are slowly establishing themselves in Norway as breeding birds and Jeløy an hour south of Oslo is an area where they can be heard singing. I paid a visit at the end of the month and had one male.

Bird of the month was probably the Broad-billed Sandpiper that Jack D found on Gressholmen. This is the locality to find one in Oslo but I had really hoped to find one in Maridalen last year when the water was so low.

hybrid Pochard (taffeland) x Tufted Duck (toppand)

Dotterel (boltit)

male Bluethroat (blåstrupe)

Hoopoe (hærfugl)

male Firecrest (rødtoppfuglekonge)

Broad-billed Sandpiper (fjellmyrløper)

a 1cy male Black Redstart (svartrødstjert) at the month end

June

The month started with a trip to Valdres with Conor in a repeat of our trip of 2021. All the usual, but great, suspects were seen.

Butterflies and dragonflies started taking over back in Oslo (and it was a very good season for them) but on the 10^th when birds were far from my mind and I was firing up the BBQ with a beer in hand I was lucky enough to be driven up to Maridalen to see the undoubted bird of the year, a Gull-billed Tern. This was a species I would never have imagined would turn up in the Dale and when I was sent pictures asking to help identify it I refused to entertain the idea…

A trip away from Oslo gave me long wished for displaying Broad-billed Sandpiper, new butterflies and two of Norway’s rarest breeding birds – Ortolan and Rustic Bunting (a single pair of Snowy Owls that bred in the north of Norway this year after a number of years absence may deserve the title of rarest breeder).

My rarest find of the year came in the form of two Caspian Terns that I stumbled upon at Årnestangen.

Hawk Owl (haukugle) in Valdres

an unusually close view of a singing Cuckoo (gjøk) with an angry Willow Warbler (løvsanger)

bird of the year - Gull-billed Tern (sandterne) at Maridalsvannet

and my find of the year - Caspian Tern (rovterne) at Årnestangen

displaying Broad-billed Sandpiper (fjellmyrløper)

and breeding Red-necked Phalarope (svømmesnipe)

my best ever views of Nightjar (nattravn) in near daylight

the female from Norway's only known pair of Rustic Bunting (vierspurv)

and the male

and the male from Norway's only know breeding pair of Ortolan Buntings (hortulan)