OSLO BIRDER: Wrote too soon

Saturday, 2 May 2026

Wrote too soon

1^st May was it turns out not as bad as I thought. In the afternoon a Great White Egret was reported from Fornebu. A good species but not one to make me rush out of the door. However, in the evening I had to drop Jr Jr off at a party which my phone informed me was only a further 7 minutes drive from said Egret. I had little belief that it would still be present given it was a Bank Holiday and Fornebu has become more park that nature reserve but when I turned up I immediately saw it. Nice and a Fornebu tick for yours truly 😊

It was an immature due to its yellow bill and was colour ringed although this I only discovered from my photos and cannot make out any code. I am also unsure of the colour of the ring so cannot find what scheme it is from – it looks black but the only scheme listed on cr-birding.org states it rings on the right leg whereas this is on the left.

The Egret can only count as Good as I was twitching but there was a hint of Greatness from two other birds. Three Bar-tailed Godwits had also been reported and I could see two waders sleeping in the bay. I naturally assumed these to be Barwits and paid them no further attention until I was about to go home by which time the evening sun had sunk so much that all birds in the bay were in shade. Their bills were under their wings but never-the-less something didn’t look right for Barwit and I was quite sure they were Blackwits. And indeed they were! They were very brick red and small and were clearly Icelandic birds and I wondered if there had been a mistake with the earlier reports but the two bird theory does apply here. Blackwits are not annual in Oslo and Akershus in spring and most previous birds look to be limosa but in the autumn when the species is far commoner it is definitely islandica that dominates.