OSLO BIRDER: Taiga Time

MC Hammer may have had his Hammer Time but Oslo Birder has Taiga Time and is lucky enough that it is biannual occurrence. Two emails had already pinged into my inbox from Angus in Scotland asking me whether there had been any sightings in Norway yet as Dan in Sweden already had 24 birds on the early date of 9^th August and a whopping 193 on the 23^rd. I may not be Norwegian but it does sting to be outdone by a Swede so I went out looking for the geese last Thursday and then again yesterday. The last working collar stopped transmitting this summer so I have no technical aids to help me in my search which does make Taiga hunting a very different ball game altogether as they have a habit of choosing obscure fields or marshes. On Thursday I checked out previously favoured stubble fields which only revealed that they were indeed stubble and the harvest had happened and yesterday my search of these same fields revealed only a small flock of Canada Geese and Cranes. I knew where I had to go but was hesitant as visiting the often used peat bog would likely mean sinking to my shins in peat (happened), getting crawled on by deer ked (hjortelusflue) which while not being big biters are undoubtedly one of nature’s most annoying creatures (happened) and if I found the geese I would undoubtedly end up flushing them which I hate doing (happened).

What initially looked to be just 6 geese hidden away on the bog turned out to be 129 when they flushed at more than 100 metres range and despite my best efforts for it not to happen. After a pretty constant decline since I started counting them in the autumn in 2013 this is a very welcome increase and must be the result of a good breeding season. Dan had managed to count 31 juveniles in the Swedish staging flock of 193 on Saturday and while I must admit to not being very confident at separating juveniles from adults it is clear from the flight photos I took that there are lots of family groups.

Otherwise , my drive around an increasingly autumnal landscape revealed disappointingly few raptors but there were good numbers of Yellow Wagtails and Wheatears.

I had seen that one bird had a collar when I was in the field but could read no details. Instead I took loads of photos of the flock in flight with the aim of being able to find all ringed birds aswell as identify family groups. After going through my pictures I have been able to see the following:

1. Collar V8 was the only collar in the flock and he had 3 young but no mate. V8 was paired to 05 who carried the last working GPS sender until she sent her last plot on 30 May. The plots had suggested that 05 had nested successfully and it was great to see that is the case but of course sad that I could not see 05 with her mate and young. We will never know what happened to her and whether she perished at the same time the sender sent its last plot or if that happened later.

2. I read a single leg ring (right leg) of a bird that had lost its collar and this was a really exciting find. Y6 is a bird that has used both Norway and Sweden and is I think the only bird that has been documented doing so:
spring 2020 NO
autumn 2020 SW
spring 2022 NO
autumn 2022 NO
spring 2023 NO
autumn 2024 SW
spring 2025 SW
autumn 2025 NO

3. In addition there was a bird with a white ring on its left leg that I could not read but is probably 7V

4. I also saw two birds with metal rings, one on the left leg and one on the right leg. From the pictures it is not possible to see their other legs so they could be the same as 2 and 3.

I have not yet attempted to identify and count juveniles and family groups but will post a number of photos that allow any who is interested to do so.

glimpsing some birds on the bog

the whole flock of 129 birds

the graph shows that this is a high autumn count and indicates a good breeding season but Y6 shows that birds that had used the Swedish route in previous years can use the Norwegian route in the next season so we have to be a bit careful how we interpret these numbers

V8 with 3 goslings but his mate 05 is no longer with us

another picture showing the family of 4 sticking together

a white colour ring on the left leg with an inscription that I cannot read. 7V is I think the best candidate

a metal ring on the left leg but we don't see the right leg

and here a metal ring on right leg (can't see left leg) and a white ring on right leg which may well be Y6

when I spotted the first birds which were over 100m away beyond the small trees

this is where they had been

there were a few discarded feathers

and droppings

the peat bog was very dry with most pools having dried up

there were a few pools though and it was clear the geese had visited them. In the autumn they often do not visit the river or their roosting lakes at all during the day and when they are using stubble fields I interpret some of their regular visits to this peat bog as visits to drink