A week gone by

As I write this it is just +1C and snowing outside the window. This is in stark contrast to England where Jr and I spent a loooong weekend looking at flowering daffodils, bluebells, wood anemones, Firecrests and Red Kites. Firecrests have now become ten a penny in my childhood birding haunts where I definitely did not see a single one (40 years ago….) when I was a young birder and Red Kites now cruise over urban areas looking for a snack. In contrast to these species that have become much commoner I also heard a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker which would appear to be the first eBird record for West Sussex this year. It was a rare species when I was a lad but has clearly become even rarer in the (may) intervening years.

Before we went to England Maridalsvannet was still frozen and Østensjøvannet still half so. Now Maridalsvannet and, I presume, ØV are ice free but surprisingly Sognsvann proved to still be covered in ice on a walk with The Beast today. We are still waiting for the big arrival of thrushes but lots of Chaffinches have arrived although we are still waiting for the big arrival of Bramblings. Yesterday was a good day for Pink-footed Geese with 3000 or so passing over Maridalen in just an hour of observation but there did not seem to be anything else moving. Maybe I will still get big raptor da

Mute Swan (knoppsvane) pair on Maridalsvannet. I have not seen them getting any grief from the Whooper Swans so may be there will be far less swan drama this year although I still think the lake is a very suboptimal locality for them. Both birds had colour rings although I was unable to read them

Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) heading north over Jr in Maridalen yesterday

a lone Pink-foot with Greylags by a frozen Sognsvann today

a large flock of Pink-feet over Nes in Maridalen

a pair of Smew (lappfiskand) at Østensjøvannet before we went to England. It has now become an expected event that the species will turn up as soon as the ice starts melting there

another species that has appeared in Sussex since I left is Egyptian Goose (niland) which still breeds during the southern summer, i.e our winter

Goshawk (hønsehauk) nest at Sognsvann today. This pair must surely be the most accepting of humans in the whole of Norway

me scoping an ice free Maridalsvannet yesterday

Chaffing again

We woke up to snow this morning (can’t remember that being forecast) plus low cloud and the promise of a day that wouldn’t remain in a dusk like condition all day.

I still needed to get out though as there are Chaffchiffs (gransanger) that need chiffing. I started at Huk hoping for at least one of the three species of auk (Razorbill (alke), Little Auk (alkekonge) and Black Guillemot (teist)) that others manage to see but evade me (I just find Guillemots(lomiv)). No luck on that score but I did note the continued presence of the refugees who still don’t seem to have been taken care of by the Norwegian welfare system but also seem to be looking none the worse for that (maybe they are labour migrants rather than asylum seakers?).

The reedbed at Hengsenga looked very lifeless when I arrived with its fresh layer of snow and I couldn’t even hear any Blue Tits. As I started walking around though I heard that now familiar sad peep of a tristis Chiffchaff. This time I managed to see the bird actually giving the call. This bird looks to be the same one I saw last Friday and is not as far as I can see the bird I found on Tuesday although much has been written about how the colour of tristis can morph depending on the light conditions. This bird appears darker than that first individual but still looks good for tristis with absence of yellow in the plumage. Today it called for a bit when I first found it but after that went quiet and didn’t respond to any of the sounds I played it although it did seem to respond to pishing. However it was much easier to see than it has previously been and kept in an area of tall dry grass where it would often show at just a few metres range although the auto focus on the camera often couldn’t keep up especially with grass stems getting in the way. However I took so many pictures that some had to be useable.

Østensjøvannet was also visited and the usual wildfowl were still present on the four small areas of open water and would seem to be finding plenty of food.

Maridalen was deadly quiet and I couldn’t relocate yesterdays Lt Tits or Chiffchaff.

siberian (tristis) Chiffchaff:

I took a couple of hundred pictures of this bird and feel that none perfectly match the colour of the bird as I experienced it in the field. Many of the pictures I took also differ depending on light, background and exposure

this picture captures the brown ear coverts. Also notice the lack of yellow or green tones

note the white underparts. At this angle we can see some yellow/green tones at the bend of the wing and on the edges of the primaries and secondaries which is OK for tristis

here the bird looks less white on the underparts but note the lack of yellow on the head

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here we see the slight yellow area on the underwing coverts (which show at the bend of the wing on the resting bird)

this Robin was also surviving in the reedbed alongside the chiffchaff. The two different types of greater covert feathers (longer and with broad tips inner and shorter with only thin pale tips outer) show this to be a 1cy bird.

young Mute Swan - this is a full colour photo!

The refugees with the exclusive Dynafyr resturant in the background

this Cormorant (storskarv) had captured a large cod. I didn't see how it fared but the local gulls which normally are very quick to try to steal food from the Cormorants didn't even bother with this

Chiffy chaffs

For the first time in living memory the sun shone in Oslo today and people were literally throwing their clothes off.

A trip out to Huk, Bygdøy to try, again, to find the White-billed Diver (gulnebblom) failed, again, in that respect. The refugees were still present though this time feeding in a fenced off garden by the nudist beach. Walking across a nudist beach with binoculars and camera feels a bit on the uncomfortable side but at the end of November in Oslo there shouldn’t be too many naturists to worry about, should there? Well the weather had brought them out today but we managed to avoid any confrontation. The refugees looked very comfortable in the garden and I feared that I was going to see someone appear and start throwing corn to his pets but luckily that didn’t occur......

Walking around Bygdøy was a relatively birdless experience until I arrived at the small marsh and reedbed at Hengsenga. I had a vain hope of finding Bearded Tit (skjeggmeis) or a Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin) but that hope was indeed in vain. As I was leaving though a Chiffchaff (gransanger) called probably my latest ever in Norway. It was a fairly typical call and when I found the bird it looked fairly “normal” with green hues. I played the call of Chiffchaff at some distance which didn’t seem to invoke any interest and then moved closer and played the song which caused the bird to come very close in the dead grass (although remain silent). I then played the call of Siberian Chiffchaff which the bird wasn’t interested in and then the call of the eastern abietinus race of Chiffchaff which again brought the bird in close. So the bird may well be abietinus but then again what is actually abietinus? The literature doesn’t seem clear to me and with recent research possibly even questioning the validity of the form. The recording of the call of abietinus that I have is to my ears pretty similar to our normal Chiffchaffs so I don’t really know how one goes about IDing abietinus in the field anyway.

Whilst working on this bird a couple of Wrens (gjerdesmett) started making a noise and as I looked at them I saw another Chiffchaff. This was a much browner, colder coloured bird with really contrasting jet black legs and bill. It didn’t call and also did not respond in any way to any of the calls I played. It was much more difficult to take photos of this bird but it did eventually call a few times and the call was the classic chicken call of a Siberian Chiffcaff tristis which confirmed what I had assumed from the birds plumage. Would have been nicer with something with wingbars though...

(Siberian) Chiffchaff tristis

the pictures are poor but here you can just make out the brown tinge to the cheek

a more normal Chiffchaff with green hues

note especially the green on the breast at the bend of the wing

the sort primary projection typical of a Chiffchaff

refugee enjoying the sun

Refugees fleeing.....and returning

The weather forecast has us to believe that we will get our first real taste of winter tomorrow and the rain that fell yesterday in downtown Oslo has settled as snow on the hills around the city. I therefore accepted that I could no longer put off changing to winter tyres on the car so set to work. Just as I was beginning a message came through that the refugees were stil present but more excitingly there was a PS that a probable Great Northern Diver (islom) was offshore the same location. GN Diver is equally rare in Oslo as the ugly ducklings so this was exciting news. I had 4 wheels to change over though so would have to wait a bit. 20 minutes later and I was half way through changing the second wheel when the phone beeped again. With the bolts safely tightened I checked the phone to see that the ID was confirmed and it was feeding close inshore. What to do? I chose to continue with the wheel changing and whilst struggling with the final wheel (I will need to visit a garage....) came a message that the diver was actually most likely a White-billed Diver. Equally as rare in Oslo but an even more exciting bird. I gave up changing wheel 4, cleaned up and headed down. A phonecall on the way revealed it had been lost to sight but was most likely further in Lysakerfjord so I headed to a place that would give me a view of this area and searched for 30 minutes without joy. This bird could very well be the same one that has been seen a couple of times in the Oslofjord in the last month so may turn up again.

One “highlight” of searching for the diver was that I saw the two refugees in flight flying from Huk over to Fornebu and therefore got a new Akershus tick. 5 minutes later they flew back to Oslo having obviously not found Bærum to their liking.

I went up to Huk where there was a small twitch in motion and some pleasant people to talk to but I was most interested in scanning the sea for the diver. Here again I failed though even though the sea was nearly without a ripple. There was only one auk, a Guillemot (lomvi), to see. As I’ve said before I hope the birds that were pushed in by the storms have managed to fly back out of the fjord rather than perishing of starvation.

the refugees in flight over Fornebu with the blue building to the left being the very pleasant Sjøflyhavnakro resturant

the last bird I took a picture of here was a Manx Shearwater, not quite the same...

Refugees

In grey, cold and damp conditions James Ewen and I stood on the top of an office block and didn't film or even see a Peregrine Falcon (vandrefalk) so there is still a lot of work and much luck needed to get the final footage in the can. A subsequent trip to Frognerpark revealed a hoped for Grey Heron (hegre) but that flew off before being captured on the hard drive so not much luck today.

Whilst not filming Peregrines we did have this Goshawk (hønsehauk) flyby with a Crow in tow. I really think that Canon should look at how poor this picture is and accept that it is down to their poor equipment (a 550D camer body) and should immediately make me a Canon Ambassador and send the new 7D for field trials

I persuaded James to head towards Bygdøy with the promise of Herons (4 there last week) but with me really hoping to find a Little Auk (alkekonge) or Razorbill (alke) to add to my Oslo year list. No herons or auks but a few Velvet (sjøorre) and Common Scoter (svartand) and a pair of Hawfinches (kjernebiter). Also a couple of African refugees looking cold and confused.

Hawfinch - just look at the size of that bill

this poor African refugee has been failed by Norway's usually generous welfare system and was forced to scavenge around rubbish bins

 

here the two refugees looking longingly south and reflecting how life wasn't really so bad before

if the footage James is taking here makes it to the final cut then that will be a sign that all his other plans went pear shaped

and the refugee posing for a mug shot ofr his new identity papers

These Egyptian Geese (niland) were seen two days ago on one of the islands off Oslo. A rather unsatisfying Norwegian tick to be honest and not the way I had thought I would equal the Oslo year list record (173 species). Difficult to know where they have come from (except of course that its not from the species native Africa) but previous Norwegian records have been accepted into Category C based on the feral populations elsewhere in Europe but they could just as easily be escapes especially a bird from a couple of years back which was incredibly tame. But come to think about would anyone really want to keep such an ugly bird in captivity? Well maybe they bought a couple of cute, downy ducklings and when they grew up and revealed they really were the ugly ducklings they just decided to let them go?