Winter?

It is unusually warm at the moment. When we have a cloudless night then we get a frost but during the day it gets up to 10C and we are now forecast a period of cloudy weather when we will not have frosts although daytime temperatures will not get that high either. We have yet to have any snow and none is forecast in the near future. Most birds have followed the calendar though and left anyway although there are still large flocks of Fieldfares and some Redwings around although they always seem to disappear after a cloudless night and then reappear on a foggy morning so I think it is different birds that are still moving through from further north.

The Hawk Owl seems to have unsurprisingly moved on but there are still Grosbeaks to be found. Here are some pictures from the end of the week of the usual suspects.

this male Snow Bunting (snøspurv) at Fornebu was something new

but the Kingfisher (isfugl) is probably the same bird I see most visits

spot him?

up to 3 Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin) reveal themselves to the thermal imager. All Common Snipe seem to have moved on after a heavy frost but their small cousins are of hardier stock

a few Brambling (bjørkefink) are still around but are outnumber by the Beast from the East:

the Pine Grosbeak (konglebit)

adult males make up around a fifth of the numbers but are very unevenly distributed amongst the small groups. Sometimes there are up to 8 birds without an adult male and then you find 3 or 4 adult males in a similarly sized flock