Day of Days

Last night the word famous MOGA movement had one of its world famous meetings and there has never been such a crowd ever before in the history of the universe. It has been said by many that this movement is the greatest movement in the birding world and there has never been seen anything like it EVER and of course as its leader I am the most respected and handsome birder in the history of not just birding but the universe.

If we are to be honest (but one should of course never be so) then Making Owling Great Again didn’t have the most successful outing last night with Tengmalm’s again being absent but Pygmy and Tawny did reveal themselves to Jack and I 😉

even if MOGA meetings don't deliver what it says on the tin you cannot deny it is GREAT to be out in the forest at night

 

Today though has been an epic day!

When walking the Beast this morning Redwings were moving and it felt birdy so I decided that Fornebu needed to be grilled to find some wing bars. It was indeed birdy and Chiffchaffs were huetting all over the place but I struggled to find anything unusual until an F35 streaked through the skies high above me and a few seconds after it had passed then I heard it as did some Bearded Tits (should I start calling them Reedlings?) which called from the reedbed by me. This was if anything rarer than a YbW. My last sighting of a Beardie was a year and a half ago whilst of Ybw only a year ago. There turned out to be 4 birds but only one, a female, showed relatively well and she was ringed. It would be interesting to know from whence the lady has cometh.

a ringed female Bearded Tit (skjeggmeis)

They were surprisingly quiet and skulky which suggests they may well have been around a few days as freshly arrived birds are usually very restless and noisy. So, a year tick and a species I have been hoping would turn up and spend the winter at Fornebu. Whether they stay needs to be seen but it will be fun finding out.

The day though had only just begun. After a good walk around Storøya and taking in Koksa as well as Storøykilen I decided to stop at the last remaining area of Nansenparken which seems to have any attraction to passerines – namely the urban vegetable patch. I was thinking of a rare Stonechat or Wheatear but instead a Turtle Dove flew up!!! Only my third ever in Norway and my first self-found one this was a proper rarity and I put the news out pronto. It was a very smart bird and seem settled until for no obvious reason it took off and disappeared but 6 others managed to see it.

My Norwegian list is a very modest 326 species but my self found list is now 287 which is decidedly respectable.

the Turtle Dove (turteldue) when I found it

it soon moved up onto a lamppost allowing this photo to prove where it was

although the plumage looks very adult like the lesser coverts are pale and I think juvenile so I reckon it is a very advanced 1cy

here we can see that the inner primaries are new adult ones and the outer primaries are old juvenile ones

the obligatory selfie

But the day was still not over. A Caspian Gull that was very belatedly reported from Middelalderparken in central Oslo a couple of weeks ago and a message came through that it had been refound at exactly the same time the dove flew off so 15 minutes later I was looking for it. The pictures I had first seen of the bird leave me feeling it is perhaps more cactus than cach but my viewpoint may be conflicted as my only self-found cach was eventually not approved as the records committee saw it as more of a cactus (if this is making no sense to you then cactus comes from the latin name of Caspian which is cachinnans and Herring Gull which is argentatus meaning the bird is a hybrid between these two species). I am also the first to admit that I suck when it comes to gulls and today's pictures do look more convincing. It was a small bird so presumably a female no matter who its mum and dad are.

The gull, if pure, was of course also a year tick so three potential year ticks on the same day in October when not on an island is bloody good going!

Here are my poor pictures and I must also admit that when I took them I did not think it was the bird but can see now that it is......

a gull with a lot of and perhaps 100% Caspian in it

the gulls were being fed by a concerned citizen and as soon as they saw her arriving they flew up to her so she is clearly a regular fixture. Here a tight mass of gulls were tucking into the food that she emptied out.