The last week saw the greatest migration day of the spring, at least as far as quantity is concerned, when the Pink-footed Geese decided that conditions were favourable and took off on mass from Denmark early in the morning before passing over Oslo some hours later. Thursday was the day and is the earliest ever date for the big day which 30-40 years ago used to occur in the first week of May. Over the course of 3 hours I counted over 9000 birds heading first NNE over Maridalen and then after the wind changed from southerly to northerly they started heading ENE. I made a real effort to check every flock hoping for something white or red but could only find a few Barnacles and just a single Greylag amongst them. When you spend so long scanning the skies you expect to notice other signs of viz mig but amazingly apart from some Wood Pigeons and some gulls I just had a single Buzzard and two Sparrowhawks which were probably local birds.
Passerine migration has picked up slightly with a few Mistle Thrushes, Twite and Reed Buntings now around in Maridalen but it can feel very birdless at times.
My major excitement this week has been with owls again but they will be the subject of their own post very soon.
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| hundreds of Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) streaming over Maridalen on Thursday |
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| here with a Barnacle Goose (hvitkinngås) amongst them |
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| the juvenile Common Crossbills (grankorsnebb) are growing and will probably leave the nest within a week. Note however that they have yet to develop the crossed bill of their parents |
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| food time |
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| with the sunny days there are suddenly insects and Goldcrest (fuglekonge) are appearing openly in bushes to exploit this new food source |
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| Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers (dvergspett) are getting quite vocal as they search for mates. I had two very noisy birds yesterday which as far as I could see were both females |
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| a pale Buzzard (musvåk) |
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| my first Adder (hoggorm) of the year |
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