Back in the hood

The last week has been spent in Mallorca on a family holiday and not birding during primetime in Norway which means that it was not me but rather Håvard Eggen who discovered a second for Norway (and a very rare WP bird) in the form of a Baltimore Oriole on, yes you’ve guessed it Værøy! It goes to show that timing and weather mean everything with island birding in the autumn – the obvious solution would be to move there..

Back in Oslo today I took Oslo Birder Jr on a cycle ride to Maridalen where we twitched the valleys only second ever Shovelers and best of all had a Pygmy Owl. I heard a bunch of very irritated passerines and knew they were mobbing an owl. We walked up to them and stood under the tree where all the commotion was going on. I was thinking Tawny Owl and was therefore looking for something big and it too me a looong time to notice the tiny yellow eyed predator sitting just 5 metres above me on a small branch. I managed two poor photos before it flew off with a Brambling nipping at its tail.

this Pygmy Owl was perched very close in good light but unfortunately it flew off right after I got this picture. It didn't help that I was desperately trying to get Jr onto the bird

Our week in Mallorca involved little birding despite us staying in a hotel on the edge of the fantastic S’Albufeira wetland nature reserve. I birded very little and had no ‘scope and only took the old 70-300mm lens. There was a small hide overlooking a pool only 5 minutes walk from the hotel so I did of course visit that every day J

Best record was a flock of 32 Marbled Teal which I think originate from reintroduced birds as do the couple of Purple Gallinules I saw. In addition there were Black-winged Stilts, Flamingo, Audoin’s Gulls, Marsh Harrier, Booted Eagle, Stonechat, Fan-tailed, Cetti’s and Sardinian Warblers, Firecrest, Serin, Eleanora’s Falcon, Stone Curlew, Kingfisher plus plus so not too bad for a non-birding trip.

the smartest of the large gulls - Audouin's Gull (middelhavsmåke)

Black-winged Stilts (stylteløper)

a distant flock of egrets and a couple of Eleanora's Falcons against the distant mountains

Fan-tailed Warbler/Zitting Cisticola (cistussanger)

Two firecrests (rødtoppfuglekonge) - can you spot them?

young Flamingo

aliens

Alien sex

Kingfisher (isfugl)

Little Egrets (silkehegre) in the rain

Marbled Teal (marmorand) with Mallards

flock of Marbled Teal and Mallards

same flock in the rain

Marsh Harriers (sivhauk) were common

Purple Gallinule/Swamphen (sultanhøne)

using its feet to hold the reeds it eats

Speckled Wood butterflies look different here

Stone Curlew (triel

male Stonechat (svartstrupe)

 

Yellow-legged Gulls

The big boys (owls) didn’t want to come out to play when I was at Borrevannet today. I gave it 4 and a half hours but would undoubtedly have increased my chances if I had been there in the evening. There were seven other birders looking though which at least made it a sociable dip.

Woodpeckers were much in evidence with Lesser Spotted (dvergspett), Great Spotted (flagspett), Green (grønnspett) and Black Woodpecker (svartspett) all showing well.

It looks like the Ural Owl (slagugle) has been present for a few days (and possibly two weeks) so will hopefully hang around a while longer and reward those who persevere (as I write this at 6pm a message has come through that it has just been seen).

With no interesting pictures of owls to show in the blog I thought what bird topic fills me with most enthusiasm. As I couldn’t quiet agree with myself as to the answer to this I thought I might just as well write about the birding topic that undoubtedly fills me with least enthusiasm – the large gull complex formerly (and conveniently) called Herring Gull (gråmåke) but now split into a myriad of different species. In Mallorca there were two species of “Large White-headed Gull”: Auduoin’s Gull (middelhavsmåke) and Yellow-legged Gull (gulbeinmåke). Auduoin’s is a beautiful and easy to identify bird (in adult plumage at least). Yellow-legged Gull on the other hand is ugly and closely resembles the Herring Gulls of northern Europe. Not even the yellow legs of adult birds are enough to identify this species as Herring Gulls can occasionally have equally yellow legs (commonest in Baltic breeders?).

I have decided that I will work on increasing my enthusiasm for LWH Gulls partly as one shouldn’t be birdist but also in the Oslo area there should actually be good opportunities to turn up a real rarity amongst the many hundreds of Herring, Lesser Black-backed (sildemåke) and Great Black-backed Gulls (svartbak). I therefore spent some time looking at the Yellow-legged Gulls in Mallorca and even went as far as taking some pictures which I intend to comment on:

Adult Yellow-legged Gull (gulbeinmåke)

note: yellow legs, dark grey back, black eye patch forming around eye (winter plumage), red orbital eye ring and angular head

Giving diplay call

This bird appeared paler both on the back (approaching Herring Gull) and also on the bill (maybe a 4k?)

Flight shot: looks like P10 and P9 (the two outermost primaries) are not yet fully grown and that P8 is the longest primary. Counting back note the black markings on P5 which is a good difference to Herring Gull. Can you see why I struggle to get excited by this species group?

Yellow-legged Gull 3k

This bird is in its 3rd calendar year (3k) and is transitioning from 2nd summer to 3rd winter plumage. Note the legs are only just getting a yellowish tinge and the mostly black wing tips are unlikely to be of much help

Yellow-legged Gull 2k

2nd calendar bird (2k) transitioning from 1st summer to 2nd winter plumage. Dark eye mask on white face is a good feature

I had previously labelled this bird as a 1cy but the extent of moult including on the coverts shows this to be a 2 cy but obviously not as advanced as the bird above.

Yellow-legged Gull 1k

From behind showing the bold black tail bar and dark tertials with only thin white tips (Herring Gull would have far more patterned tertials)

out of focus but the tail pattern and only slightly paler inner primaries can be seen (Herring Gull would normally have a distinctly paler inner primaries)

Poor picture but showing uperwing of the 1st winter

And finally a picture of a large gull that is nice to look at:

Mallorca photos

Towards the end of our week in Mallorca we visited the famous Boquer Valley. Going either side of midday was never going to be that productive but I did expect a litte more than Blue Rock Thrush (blåtrost), Booted Eagle (dvergørn), Raven (ravn), Crag Martin (klippesvale), Stonechat (svartstrupe), Pied Flycatcher (svarthvit fluesnapper) and Sardinian Warbler (svarthodesanger).
A drive to Sa Calobra on a fantastic mountain road full of switchbacks gave us at least 8 Black Vultures munkegribb) and 2 Griffons Vultures (gåsegribb) aswell as Booted Eagle and Kestrels (tårnfalk). On a future trip to Mallorca it will definitely be worth spending more time exploring the mountains.
The bay in Porto Pollenca offered bathing and birding with Auduoin's Gulls (middelhavsmåke), Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke), Shags (toppskarv) and Sandwich Terns (splitterne) resting on the offshore breakwaters. I waded out in the shallow water to within 20m of the birds to take pictures (hoping to get sea level shots of diving terns but i just missed this) and later swam to within 5 metres of the unaffected birds.

I only took the old 70-300mm lens with me and often found the light to be too harsh for good pictures but here is a selection of the best ones I took and I will have some separate postings of selected species later.

Red-knobbed Coot (knoppsothøne)

The new name is far more fitting than the old name of Crested Coot. After the breeding season they loose the redcurrants on their head and therefore far more resemble Common Coots (sothøne). The three birds I saw all had knobs and I couldn't pick out any without amongst the far more numerous Common Coots.
 

Purple Swamphen (sultanhøne)

This was a very common bird and not particularly shy.

Booted Eagle (dvergørn)

Alongside Kestrel, Booted Eagle was the commonest raptor we saw and although smaller than a Buzzard (musvåk) it has the feal of an eagle with longs fingers and a stout bill. Light and dark phase birds seemed to be equally common. On the dark phase birds the pale "landing lights" are very obvious on birds flying towards you.

Auduoin's Gulls (middelhavsmåke) in Porto Pollenca bay

Little Egret (silkehegre) at S'Albufera

Black-winged Stilts (sylteløper)

Moustached Warbler (Tamarisksanger)

Griffon Vulture (gåsegribb)

unknown dragonfly

A day flying moth - presumed hawkmoth of some kind