Black Guillemot - Oslo X

Yesterday was a day of contrasts. The morning saw me Beast walking in the forest and then in the afternoon I joined Halvard H on his boat for a fabulous trip on the fjord.

The forest gave up two of its treasures: Hawk Owl and Hazel Grouse. My experience with the grouse went some way to confirming my theory that having the dog with me actually helps in getting good views of this species. All my recent close and prolonged encounters have been when the Beast has been with me. His presence is an irritation when his impatience makes it difficult for me to take photos but I think that the birds are curious about him presumably because he is a predator. When I have gone without him with the sole purpose of getting good photos or guiding then the birds have been far more difficult to see. Maybe he will have to join me guiding….

I was really looking forward to the boat trip on the fjord. There was next to no wind so it would be a pleasant trip and I wouldn’t end up with a bad back for the next two weeks which has the flip side of previous trips. I had also seen a lot of birds on the fjord on Wednesday so expected we would find a lot from the boat. Andreas G was also out on his boat and was ahead of us which took some of the fun out of things as we knew what to expect but in the end there was, with one noticeable exception, very little to see. The exception was a Black Guillemot. I have only seen this species twice previously in Akershus and never in Oslo so when Andreas reported he had seen one then we were very keen o see it. We relocated it around 1.5km from where Andreas saw it and had close views from the boat although taking photos from a boat no matter how calm it is is not easy. The bird was in Akershus although very close to the Oslo border and jokingly (?) I suggested gently encouraging it towards the big smoke. This was not necessary though as the bird of its own accord suddenly took off and flew far into Oslo territory giving me a new county tick and taking me 238 species.

Hazel Grouse (jerpe), as you will see from the sequence of photos it is never an easy bird to photo even if it sits still quite close to you

Hawkie seems quite happy with his chosen clearing

Black Guillemot (teist) with Oslo city centre in the background

a good mystery bird photo

and the proof that it was in Hvervenbukta and therefore Oslo

a Grey Seal (havert)

This Cormorant (storskarv) stood out bt being noticeably smaller and reminded me that I need to read up on the ID of Double Crested Cormorant

This 1st winter Common Gull (fiskemåke) appeared very large and with the well marked bill had me considering Ring-billed Gull

This well marked Velvet Scoter (sjøorre) also caused some excitement until it revealted the white in its wing

less confusion with these adult males (and a young male? on left)

The Cabin continued...

A new batch of varied pictures from Bodø and area (I am uploading chronologically).

juvenile Common Sandpiper still with downy feathers but fully recongnisable

adult Curlew with worm. A pair bred close to the cabin and we also saw a single half grown youngster

adult Lesser Black-backed Gull and female Red-breasted Merganser. It is not easy to make sense of the LBBGs up here. All seem to be slender long winged birds that are very marine yet the mantle colour can vary from jet black to a greyer colour with brown tinges.

this might count as a record shot of a Garganey (right hand most bird in inset) - even if the head pattern is a bit blurred the blue forewing (the bird had just landed) is visible making this an eclipse male. It is together with 2 Teal

Grey Heron feeding right outside our cabin

Arctic Terns. The two adult birds seemed to be without young and were displaying but other birds had well grown young in the nest which can be seen on the right hand side of the picture

this Black Guillemot was far too concerned with a worm like fish to worry about the photographer

juvenile Bluethroat

tail is still a stub

pair of Great Black-backed Gulls with the size difference between the sexes being obvious (male left)

Herring Gull - these northern birds can have relatively little black in the wing





female Merlin

note how the birds colours differ in the next two pictures as I struggled to get the exposure correct with the white background

possibly an even worse record shot than the Garganey but this is Bodø communes second EVER Mute Swan and the cause of a mini twitch so needs to be included!

I had an amazing encounter with a mother and two young Otters than swan right towards me as I was looking for the Knobbly Duck and they didn't notice men until they had come to within 10 metres of where I stood

mum had caught some sort of flat fish

the flat fish shows better here

whilst I was watching the Otters this adult White-tailed Eagle flew in with a clear interest in them before my presence seemed to scare him off

another shot of Stein - the third and final time I saw him with every subsequent observation being in better light and wind conditions but greater range

juvenile Redstart



my only Owl of the trip - a very distant Short-eared Owl