OSLO BIRDER: Out Owling!

I have previously expressed my worries that this would not be a good spring for singing owls and my only serious attempt to hear them earlier in February resulted in zero owls. I have seen a few reports coming in though so last night I teemed up with Jack to hit Akerhus’s Owl Road and if two lifers for Jacky Boy is any way to judge success then we were successful.

Conditions were nigh on perfect with no wind, a stary sky and temperatures a few degrees below zero. We were not the only ones to have noted this weather forecast and we met other birders on a similar mission. When you go on these owling trips you stop the car frequently and listen for a few minutes at a time so it is obvious that you can easily miss birds as they do not sing continuously for the whole night. We stopped at some sites three times and only heard owls once but our perseverance was rewarded. We finished by hearing 2 singing Tawny Owls, 6 Tengmalm’s and best of all a Great Grey. Jack also heard a distant Pygmy which my older ears failed to register. The owls were concentrated in a relatively small area with most of our stops revealing nothing so it is likely that rodent concentrations are quite localised. As a sign of how concentrated the owls were we heard 2 Tengmalm’s from the same spot, a Tengmalm’s and a Tawny from another and another Tengmalm’s and the GG from a third. The GG was quite distant with it having to have been a minimum of 500m away but the song carried well although was too low to record. It sang already at 1930 but was subsequently quiet until after 2200 when it sang almost continually.

One of the Tengmalm’s sang close to the road and allowed itself to be observed and even photographed although I didn’t optimise my camera settings.