The birding definitely warrants daily bog updates but yours
truly struggles to sit in front of the computer and go through the pictures
although as yesterday was a day, or rather evening, that will go down in the OB
annals then I almost have to. I will post first about the daytime though and
just end with a teaser about the evening which was the result of a fortuned
detour whilst on the way to the airport to pick up Jr.
The day started as to be expected in Maridalen. As soon I
came to the first field it was obvious that birds had arrived as there were
Redwings on the ground for the first time and when I would down the window they
were singing😊
As I moved further into the Dale though it became apparent that there were
fewer birds than the day before most likely as a result of much higher cloud
cover and strong northerly wind. Many geese and Lapwing were still present
though and at one point all the Lapwing flew up and there were 38 of them so
smashing previous counts.
The Woodlark was not to be heard although a number of people
tried but Dunnock was new for the year (Oslo #112). Here is my eBird checklist from Maridalen.
A message from fellow English birder Joel Lund asking
me what type of bean Goose he had found at Bygdøy (where the great flood has now all but dried out) sent me down there and after
spending a good 10 minutes going through a 100 strong flock of Pink-feet I finally
saw the one with orange legs. When a bean goose is this difficult to pick out
from Pink-feet then it can be nothing other than a Tundra Bean (Oslo #113) and
single birds in flock of migrating Pink-feet is how we normally find them. Pink-feet
are perhaps the most variable goose species and this small flock contained a
number of quite distinct birds which I will show below.
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| Cranes (trane) in Maridalen |
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| 38!! Lapwings (vipe) |
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| a flyover Nutcracker (nøttekråke) in Maridalen at the end of March is an unusual sighting. A migrant? |
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| Tundra Bean Goose (tundrasædgås) - a small individual and apart from the orange on bill and legs did not differ much from many of the surrounding Pink-feet (kortnebbgås) |
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| do you see her? |
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| some of the striking Pink-feets. Here a small dark bird is still seems to have some retained juvenile plumage |
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| this very dark bird looks to be in adult plumage and really stood out. |
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| note bird on left with some white around bill. This is not unusual amongst Pink-feet of Taiga Beans |
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| but this bird (a 1st winter) is quite extreme and definitely looked like a White-fronted (tundragås) as you scanned quickly though the flock |
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| here are both the white fronted Pink-feet |
And a teaser:
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