I felt a need to post, no matter how briefly, a few days ago as a very close friend of min recently took his own life and it has been a very strange and emotional time and a reminder to me of the need to communicate. Birding has been, as it always is, a good way for me to keep myself in balance and I have not been spending time in front of the computer or editing photos.
I have this evening found a few more photos and videos from the last week in Maridalen which show a bit how things are there. Autumn migration is starting and the hope is always for something very exciting to turn up although currently I am more aware of the breeding birds disappearing.
adult Black-throated Divers (storlom) on Maridalsvannet. The single small juvenile that was on the lake earlier in the summer has disappeared but up to 11 adults have been on the lake
In this video of Red-throated Divers (smålom) which have not bred on Maridalsvannet but have now moved here from their nearby breeding ponds you can see a juvenile that is begging for food by stroking its parents throat with its bill
a visit to Svellet with Jr Jr to give her some driving practice (her driving test is coming up) looked like it would be very promising but there was no birding gold at the end of the rainbow
a caterpillar of a Pine Hawk-moth (furusvermer) Sphinx pinastri
and the caterpillar of Elephant Hawk-moth (stor snabelsvermer) Deilephila elpenor shown in the video in my last post. I found both of these wandering on roads and they are searching for places to turn into a pupa
Just in case anyone was worried and wondering if I am still here then yes I am 😊
This very short post doesn’t feature a single butterfly, although there is a caterpillar of an Elephant Hawk Moth (stor snabelsvermer) which is a quite fascinating creature.
This video of things that I came across the last couple of days also shows you what I have basically been spending all my available time watching and documenting since coming back to Oslo at the end of July.
Some pleasant surprises in Oslo and Maridalen regarding
breeding birds means I am not completely over into the butterfly world just yet.
On the lake there was suddenly a single adult Mute Swan with
5 small young! This is just like last year in that they suddenly appeared but
this year I was better prepared and had discovered the nest on 26 May. After
that discovery of the nest though I had been unable on subsequent attempts to
see any birds on it (although it was very difficult to see) and had only a
record of single adult on 1 June and then a pair flying over the lake (not near
the nest) on 9 June. I therefore assumed that the nesting attempt had failed
and the birds had moved off. To suddenly see an adult with young was therefore
a shock and it was equally surprising that I could not find the other adult
anywhere on the lake. Has the male died or moved off? And if so how did the
female managed to incubate and feed without me ever seeing her? And the pair I
saw on x June – were they visitors? Perhaps the other pair that started nesting
and then gave up? An answer to the first question is that P578 who I saw on
Maridalsvannet on 29 April, and his ring was again read on 24 May, who is the
male of the pair that bred last year and I assume the father of this years young
was seen on 16 June at Fornebu where he and his mate had spent the winter – so
it looks like he has left his mate to fend for herself! Did this happen before
the eggs hatched?
Mute Swan (knoppsvane) - presumably female PC79 who bred here last year - with 5 small young but not with her mate (P578) who has flown down to Fornebu!
The Black-throated Diver pair (one of perhaps two on the
lake) still have a single youngster and have moved quite a way from the nest
with it.
Black-throated Diver (storlom) family
The ever growing cereal crop on the Lapwing field makes seeing
the birds very difficult but yesterday I could see 3 (2 + 1) almost fully grown
young which is a great relief but the fate of the two last nests remains unknown.
a nearly fully grown Lapwing (vipe) young
And finally, I had Red-backed Shrike in the Dale this year
and it seems to be a nesting pair so fingers crossed for their success.
pair of Red-backed Shrikes (tornskate) in Maridalen
and the male on his own
A visit to Østensjøvannet today also revealed lots of young
birds. Best of all were the Black-headed Gulls which have had their first successful
breeding season (at least as a colony) for a few years with many large young on
two islands. Great Crested Grebes, Coot and Mute Swans also had young (the
later no larger than the ones I saw on Maridalsvannet) and surprisingly a
female Goldeneye had 11 quite large young with her. This raises two questions –
are they all hers? Perhaps unlikely. And how have so many survived so long? Normally
the vast majority get eaten either by gulls or pike.
Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke) have had a successful breeding season at Østensjøvannet
and a male Gadwall (snadderand) which once again seems to have chosen Østensjøvannet to moult although this year there were no records earlier in the spring
In Oslo it seems as though migration has come to end with rain
and southerly winds causing absolutely nothing exciting to turn up. Svellet also
still has mud but without there being a single wader reported this morning.
Even though the period of quantity of passage birds has passed we are definitely
entering the highest quality time and yesterday a stonking male Black-headed
Bunting was pulled out of a mist nest in the garden of a twitcher who I had no
idea had a ringers licence.
Almost all breeding migrants have now turned up with the
first Rosefinches, Red-backed Shrikes, Marsh Warblers and Nightjars being
reported now even if I have yet to see any of them yet.
My focus has now turned to locating breeding birds both for
my own benefit and also a busy period of guiding that I have coming up. Hazel
Grouse has been a real nightmare this spring. A long walk on 17 May with Mrs OB
and The Beast took me past 8 or 9 territories where I have previously had the
species but with not a single bird being found. Today I checked 3 territories
in another area including “my pair” and did finally pull a bird out of the hat
which I feel confident of being able to find again. Three-toed Woodpecker has
also been a headache this year so a female that gave herself away tapping on a
tree was a relief but she flew off without me being able to track her to a
nest.
The two pairs of Black Woodpeckers continue to entertain
with the one pair still applying the finishing interior design touches to their
property and the other pair working hard to fill three noisy mouths with food.
In this video you can see the male using over a minute and a half to feed them individually
with food he is clearly regurgitating into his bill.
the male Black Woodpecker (svartspett) that is still putting the finishing touches to his property
and two of the three young in the other nest which is at a far more expected stage
Hobby (lerkefalk) today. I have only seen a single bird and heard no calling so do not believe a pair has returned yet
Black-throated Divers (storlom)
I watched a Wood Warbler (bøksanger) with nesting material in its beak fly onto the ground here. Can you spot the nest?
here it is and is of a similar construction to Willow Warbler (løvsanger) and Chiffchaff (gransanger) nests I have previously found
On the Lapwing front there are still two birds incubating and seemingly three broods of 4,1 and 1. With the two broods of single young the siblings were lost very early on but the remaining young are now half grown and will hopefully make it. The brood of 4 is a few days younger but the parents have done very well to still have all four alive.
This weekend was spent with non birding friends at a cabin
in the mountains. Saturday was spent watching them play 18 holes of golf which
for me, a non golfer, became a 10km, 6 hour birding walk. I recorded 64 species
which for an inland location in the first half of May was far more than I
expected. The list can be seen here but a very distant Hen Harrier and three much
closer Ospreys were probably the highlights. They were also the only raptors I
saw and this must mean there are no rodents in the area which does not bode
well for future trips to Valdresflye.
Valdres Golf is by a lake which makes for some exciting
holes and also allows one to watch Black-throated Divers as can be seen in this
video.
Getting home mid afternoon allowed me a chance to combine
giving Jr Jr driving practice and a mini twitch for a Dotterel which eventually
showed very well although took a long time to find as it had left the company
of the Golden Plover flock it had originally been with and was alone on a large
undulating field.
As we enter October the number of species around Oslo has
declined greatly. It is now a week since I last saw a White Wagtail, 12 days
since I saw a Swallow and 3 weeks for Willow Warbler. New species that are turning
up now (and bang on time) are Great Grey Shrike with a bird showing well in
Maridalen and Jack Snipe at a few sites but disappointingly no Rough-legged
Buzzards (yet). And no rarities either.
The first storm of the autumn is due to hit tonight and tomorrow
but I fear will be too much south east than south to push any exciting birds
into the inner Oslofjord. I am sure I will gaze at the sea though anyway and dreaming of Leaches Petrels and Sabines Gulls.
Maridalsvannet has had a few Guillemots which turned up
after some not particularly strong southerly winds, still an adult and juv Black-throated
Diver and a Common Scoter which unusually for the autumn was an adult male. The
Whooper Swan family is reunited and feeding on stubble fields which must mean
the young can now fly although I have not actually seen them do so.
I dropped Jr at the airport this morning after she had a mid-term
break at home and then used this as an opportunity to see if I could relocate
the Taiga Beans which of course I couldn’t and they may well have moved on
already although none have yet arrived at the Scottish wintering grounds. My travels
turned up a few raptors (7 species in total) including my latest ever Hobby
which was a bird that really had me going for quite a few minutes as it seemed much
too large and I was seriously wondering if maybe I had Norway’s first ever
Eleanora’s Falcon in my bins…
spot the birdy
Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin)
when it caught some sunlight the colours on the back showed their richness
today's 1cy Hobby (lerkefalk) which appeared very large and was also quite dark
it seemed to have no problem finding insects not that I could see them
Great Grey Shrike (varsler) in Maridalen
it is noticeably scaly on the underparts
it frequently flew and took insects in flight
I am not sure what they were though
the scaly underparts would suggest a 1cy bird but the lack of a wing bar suggests an adult
apart from the insects it spent a lot of time looking down suggesting rodents were on the menu
