Return of the Taiga Beans

This spring there were still 2 of the “Scottish” Taiga Bean Geese with functioning GPS collars one of which uses the Norwegian migration route and the other the Swedish route. During the summer a lack of plots led me to think the collars had stopped working but 05, the Norwegian bird, has come online again so the birds were maybe just in wilderness areas without mobile coverage.

05 who is a female and paired with a tagged bird V8 (they both were tagged on 5 Nov 2022) left her moulting grounds, close to the breeding areas in Sweden, before dawn on 24 August and arrived at a favoured field 4 and a half hours later. This favoured autumn field is one of the very first to be harvested and I think this is the reason it is chosen initially. There was a bit of a lag in the plots but once I was aware of her arrival on Monday I endeavoured to go find them on Wednesday. Sure enough they were on the same field and it was the only one in the area to have been harvested. It is right by a road and passing cars and lorries cause them no alarm but as soon as I stopped my car all their heads went up. They soon resumed feeding though but I chose not to leave the car which did rather reduce by viewing options.

Every time I counted the flock (both in the field and from pictures) I came up with a different number but have settled on 93 being the most accurate. I could only see three collars: 05, V8 and 27. 27 is a no longer functioning GPS collar which was ringed on 24 October 2019.

The number of collared birds is declining for every season (some lose their collars but still have leg rings which can only be seen in very favourable conditions which I did not have today as the stubble was too high and I did not have birds in flight at close range when photos can reveal the rings) but we are certainly losing a lot of birds to old age, predation and quite possibly hunting. This is also supported by a general decline in the number of birds using the area in both spring and autumn.

They can live quite a long time with one of the ringed birds, 6U, having been ringed on 12 Oct 2011 (when the first birds were ringed) and last seen (by me) on 30 March 2023 when it was at least 12 years old (I don’t know if it was a juv or adult when ringed). The flock size is declining year on year and although some birds maybe are choosing different routes there seems to be a real lack of reproductive success.

 I usually find it difficult to pick out the young birds but the conditions yesterday were perfect for doing so. Unfortunately I forgot to do so whilst watching them but luckily took enough photos that I have been able to go through most of the flock and looks for juvs. What I found is worrying. The tagged bird 27 and his mate had 3 young but other that that I have only managed with certainty to find two single juveniles in the flock.

To the right is 27 whose watchful behaviour shows him to be a gander. To his right is his mate and then three juveniles

the same bird with another adult to the left

a single juvenile

and another juvenile

V8 and his mate with the GPS collar 05. These two can also be seen in the video (below) including how O5's collar moves up and down her neck which looks as though it must be quite uncomfortable

V8 telling someone off

the flock moved a 100 metres or so at one stage

here I have enlarged 27 who leg ring with the code Y7 can also be made out

the whole flock

my viewing position off the road

here I have briefly stopped the car on the road and the flock are ca. 100m away

 

BOP photos

Here are photos of the more photogenic but sadly less rare raptors from yesterday with a couple of pics from today. The Honey Buzzard sighting was very interesting. I wrote that he was not near his nest (not that I knew where the nest was) when he was calling but that looks not to be true. Upon looking at my photos I see that when he flew over me he was carry a disc of wasp cake but when he returned only 7 minutes later (which is when he started calling) he was empty taloned. This surely means that he delivered the food to young (in a nest) only 3 minutes flight away and he was not flying fast either. Neither was he flying towards dense forest and although he disappeared for me due to a line of trees I think the nest must be in one of a couple of low lying woods. Today the same male appeared from the same direction (although quite high up) but dedicated watching revealed no other sightings or clues as to where the nest is.

Two male Goshawks were also interacting yesterday – one looks to be an adult male and the other a 3cy male which is perhaps trying to muscle in on a territory.

An adult and juv Hobby were also interacting with each other and a Sparrowhawk high over the lake and it is unknown whether these were from the local family or from further away.

male Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) with a disc of wasp comb in its talons

and 7 minutes later without

here he is straining his neck as he had an Osprey, a Common Buzzard and perhaps most important a Goshawk to be aware of

his beak is open and he was calling

performing contortions

the same bird today. In the field in challenging light I thought this was a female but it can be seen to be the same male

Common Buzzard (musvåk) - a moulting adult

Sparrowhawk (spurvehauk) - there are  a number of juvenile birds around that have fun practicing their hunting skills of anything no matter size

another bird

a male Goshawk (hønsehauk) with a Wood Pigeon (ringdue). This bird has a mix of old and new feathers and is a 3cy

this is probably the same bird but taken today, whereas other picture was taken yesterday

2 male Goshawks together yesterday

the closer bird is the presumed 3cy whereas the bird on the left is an adult. Note how it has the white undertail covert feathers puffed out which normally happens during display

adult above

Osprey (fiskeørn) - adult male

juvenile Hobby (lerkefalk) left sparring with one of its parents

the same juvenile, aged by the absence of red trousers

and here the youngster is sparing with a young Sparrowhawk

adult Hobby with its red trousers

Nutcrackers (nøttekråke) are regularly to be seen flying high overhead with their crops full of nuts. They fly many, many kilometres from the city into the forest where they store the nuts for winter consumptions

the fields are rather disappointing but there a few Yellow Wagtails (gulerle)

A BOPping day and now only two to go!

After many days of wind and/or rain the more settled and sunny weather today looked like it could be good for  birds of prey (bops). I checked out my breeding birds first. The two Honey Buzzard chicks are now a month old and growing quickly but still have at least two more weeks until fledging. To highlight how late this nest is, a migrating juvenile was seen at Huk today, see picturehere.

The young Hobbies have been out of the nest a good while but are not yet independent. They are good fliers and I have seen them catching dragonflies but they still spend there time waiting in tree tops for the parents to bring birds which results in lots of begging and chasing after the parents to take the prey.

 

The day’s highlight though came from some good old sky gazing in Maridalen. I had eight species of raptor with the first highlight coming whilst watching a male Honey Buzzard (the same as yesterday) right over my head which suddenly started calling. As we were away from the nest I thought maybe there was a flying juvenile nearby and scanned. But it wasn’t another Honey that had caused him to call but three other species that were all flying around him: Common Buzzard, Osprey and Goshawk! This was quite the sight and sound and would have rounded the day off very nicely indeed but the day was still young so I kept on scanning.

I mostly scanned with my naked eye as I've had enough of distant spots that I struggle to ID but every now and again scanned more distantly with my bins. I picked up a medium sized raptor heading south along the ridge 3-4km to the east. Switching to the scope I had it in a glide flight in profile and initially thought HB until it thermalled a couple of times and had a forked tail – it was a Kite. The distance was by now closer to 5km but in the scope I could see the tail was red and species #198 for #Oslo2024 was in the bag. That it wasn’t one of the species I had listed up yesterday showing that there is so much out there to see.

This is more fourth Red Kite in Maridalen, and Oslo, and each one is further away but I think I have now reached the limit for what is possible to ID.

 

Ebird checklist here.

 

I took far too many pictures today and many of them I think will be quite good. They will have to come later though as right now I have only had time to look at the absolute worst photos I took 😉

 

Red Kite (rødglente) at 4-5km range. Counts as a record shot IMO 😂

Only 3 to go!

My dream of seeing 200 species in #Oslo2024 has taken a major step towards being reality over the last four days and I am now just three species away with four months to go. Starting on Friday afternoon we have had strong southerly winds with gusts of up to 25m/s and this is what you hope for if you want to add seabirds to your Oslo list. A message on Friday evening of a Fulmar was just the excuse I needed to take the scenic route back from dropping Jr Jr off at a friend. I had an hour at Huk before it got dark and although I did not see the Fulmar I did experience some impressive waves and two adult Little Gulls which were species #195.

During the weekend it remained windy but nothing exceptional but this morning gusts of over 20m/s were again forecast so I headed for Huk again. There were white tops to the waves and although there were not lots of birds it was definitely a case of being in it to win it with time put in being rewarded – it was also warm and dry which is unusual when seawatching. A Kittiwake was a good bird although not new for the year but a Fulmar was and became #196. Eventually I saw 2 Fulmars and 3 Kittiwakes. A young Arctic Tern showed really well and some waders headed south low over the waves with a Golden Plover being a very decent Oslo bird but two Sanderling were Oslo gold with in addition to being #197 were also a full fat Oslo tick for me and my species #253 in #Osloever. Amazingly enough it also looks to be the first ever record in Oslo and the 296^th species recorded in the capital city!! So a pretty good session! It could have been even better if I had seen the Ruff that was reported just 9 minutes after I left but that would have just been greedy.

 

With only three species left to reach #200 I will need luck, good friends and to put in the hours. There are a lot of likely species though including Ruff, Long-tailed Duck, Jack Snipe, Water Rail, Capercaille, Tengmalm’s Owl, Mediterranean Gull, one or more of Glaucous, Iceland, Caspian or Yellow-legged Gulls and then hopefully an invasion species like Pine Grosbeak or Hawk Owl. Maybe I should be going for 210 😊

my first view of a Fulmar (havhest) was at surprisingly close range although flying away from me

it did do some proper shearwater like flying

here it is seemingly flyinh over an unidentified birder who was watching from Rolfstangen on the Fornebu side of the fjord

a 1cy Kittiwake (krykkje) with the offices of Equinor at Fornebu as a backdrop

a 1cy Arctic Tern (rødnebbterne) that came ridiculously close

it was also windy in Maridalen but there were some raptors on show. This male Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) is of the same plumage type as the breeding male I am following but has no missing feathers showing him to be a different bird

a very funky Common Buzzard (musvåk) of the type that gets mistaken for Rough-legged Buzzard (fjellvåk)

the view from today's chosen spot at Huk which gave shelter from the wind