Our first mid winter trip to Tromsø has been a resounding success. We arrived at the end of Sami Week, an annual celebration of all things Sami, and got to see the Norwegian Championships in both lasso throwing and Reindeer racing. The reindeer racing happened on a snow lined downtown street on a 201m course. It was explained that 201m is the internationally defined distance for the sport but no explanation was given for why. A skier holds on to the reins whilst the animal runs and covers the distance in around 17 seconds. It all looked great fun although the animals didn’t exactly look thrilled whilst being harnessed up. Animal welfare was not mentioned once..
The Northern Lights also put on a show and this is one of the main reasons the City has become such a popular winter tourist destination and the streets were heaving with winter clothed tourists from ever corner of the globe. This tourism results in hotel prices going through the roof and rented accommodation being used for Air BnB rather than for locals or students who need it and is causing quite a lot of resentment among many natives.
I put on a «show» for the 100 or so students in Junior’s 8 storey high student block when whilst making food I slightly burnt some mince causing the smoke alarm to go off and the whole building to be evacuated. The fire brigade arrived within 10 minutes and were very good about it - I even think they were grateful to me for being given something to do on an otherwise boring Sunday evening ☺️
But what about the birds I hear you say. Well, they were tip top super. King Eiders and an adult Iceland Gull topped the bill and all seen whilst walking from Junior’s into town. Passerines are of course going to be in short supply in winter this far north but an abundance of rowan berries resulted in small flocks of Waxwing and and most surprisingly a Redwing which would be an exceptional mid winter sight even in Oslo.
The trusted superzoom and mobile phone resulted in the following documentation of the delights of Tromsø (this is done at the airport and I may come with some better edited photos later):
King Eider (praktærfugl) pair
Adult Iceland Gull (grønnlandsmåke)
Fieldfare (gråtrost)
Redwing (rødvingetrost)
I saw no divers in the field but this Yellow-billed was in Tromsø Museum
Where I also had my best ever «views» of a Gyr Falcon (Jaktfalk)
According to accepted Norwegian birding wisdom Shags (toppskarv) never perch like this…
Purple Sandpiper (fjæreplytt)
Herons have been roosting in the heronry trees by Junior’s flat all winter and they were present and noisy when we were there
The first week of February is done and dusted and I cannot
say that things have got better yet. A Wood Pigeon flying north may count as my
first spring migrant of the year although could have just been an
overwintering bird moving between
feeding sites and I did have a Greylag a couple of weeks ago that may also qualify
for that distinction. Although why either of these birds would be heading north
when temperatures are still constantly way below zero is anyone's guess.
A Black Woodpecker gave a nice performance on Thursday as
both it and a Great Spotted were seemingly finding lots of food in some dead
spruce trees. Otherwise it has really just been same old, same old. A trip to
Tromsø this weekend to see Jr fills me with the promise of finding white-winged
gulls and rare eiders but will probably be a failure judging by the lack of records
of anything exciting on either eBird or Artsobservasjoner.
this Grey Heron (hegre) had found some open water but I don't think there were any fish for it
whereas this Water Rail (vannrikse) was happy to eat porridge oats that had been put out for it
adult male Goshawk (hønsehauk) back in a favoured tree in Maridalen suggests his mind is turning to the breeding season and we may soon see some display
And these are still easy to find and for the first time in sunshine:
There are at least 3 Pygmy Owls in Maridalen at the moment
and on Sunday I finally got to see the one that everyone else is seeing (not that
I haven’t tried) and in sunshine. It was clearly hunting for rodents and made
one unsuccessful attempt to catch something. This is in contrast to previous
years when the owls have been seen to catch many rodents in quick succession.
There have been quite a few news articles about this being a rodent winter but
it is clearly still quite local.
Østensjøvannet proved to be half frozen today not that that
really caused there to be much in the way of new birds although I did have a
single Common Snipe and the Scaup was still present.
A nice surprise at home was a flock of 29 Waxwings that briefly visited an apple tree that still has fruit on it. There are very few Waxwings around this winter but I had been counting on them visiting at least once.
Pygmy Owl (spurveugle)
a classic pose when it has heard something
the female Pintail (stjertand) at Østensjøvannet was along with the Mallards clearly hoping I had food
these two Goldeneyes (kvinand) with bills that are turning yellow must be young females
good numbers of Herons (gråhegre) show there must also be a lot of fish
the ice had concentrated all the remaining (9) Moorhens (sivhøne) and I assume now that all but one or two will move off over night
this really is not a finch winter with seemingly no wintering birds other than resident birds. This (Lesser) Redpoll is a rare sight at the momemnt
the Scaup (bergand) with a Tufted Duck (toppand) and 4 Wigeon (brunnakke)
Waxwing (sidensvans) in the garden
the Maridalen Marsh Tit (løvmeis)
just look how much the appearance of a pale wing panel changes depending on angle
and a Willow Tit (granmeis) where the pale wing panel is always obvious
We are into the most exciting time of the year in the Oslo
area but it can also be the most frustrating and disappointing if the weather
does not play ball. Sunny days with northerly winds can feel birdless whereas
southerly winds and some rain can produce great arrivals of all sorts of
feathered fancies.
We are of course in a sunny, northerly wind period….
But if one is prepared to leave Maridalen and even Oslo and
participate in twitching lite then there are of course good birds to be seen.
I visited Hellesjøvannet again on Wednesday and with the
knowledge I had learned over the course of 5 hours the day before I felt
confident that I would be able to get more than a glimpse of the Bittern. I
stood in the same place as the day before and waited and waited for two whole
hours without hearing a single boom. I knew that the bird had been heard
earlier in the morning and after the two hours during which I had ascertained
that there were 2 pairs of Marsh Harriers breeding and an additional female who
seemed to be wanting to get the attention of one of the males (polygamy is
fairly regular) I decided to drive to the southern end of the lake where I
could see there were a couple of birders. I asked them if they had heard the bird
during the previous two hours to which the answer was no and then straight away
it boomed….. from where I had been standing. Returning there pronto it then
proceeded to boom in total 9 times during the course of only 58 minutes! It was
however a little further away than the previous day and seeing it proved to be
a fruitless exercise.
I have paid a couple of visits to Nordre Øyeren with my
first trip of the year out to the tip of Årnestangen and of course visits to
Svellet. Water levels continued to rise quickly until 22 April with rises of
over 20cm a day but since then it has fallen it has fallen by 15cm over the
course of 3 days. Currently it looks absolutely bloody fantastic baby, a
wader heaven but yesterday I did not see a single wader there. The reason for
this is probably two fold: the weather has not been conducive to an arrival of
waders and secondly the shallow water is currently (due to the previous rapid
rise in water levels) covering mud that has been bone dry for months and is
therefore free of any invertebrate food. Should we have a period now of warm
weather and gradually falling water levels we should though end up with
fantastic conditions for waders with food rich areas of mud gradually being
reexposed over the next 3 weeks. I am allowed to be optimistic 😉
view over Svellet on 25 April. Lots of mud and lots of shallow water. Fingers crossed for the next 3 weeks 🤞
rapidly rising water levels until 22 April
and gradually falling since.
Årnestangen gave me good views of a female Lapland Bunting
and a male Hen Harrier (although rather selfishly I was disappointed it wasn’t
a Pallid).
Yesterday, I went to Maridalen’s eastern sister valley,
Nittedal to see a Great White Egret that has been there for a few days and
enjoyed good views of it perched in trees by a lake and heronry. Another trip
to Årnestangen after this gave me long range views of a male Stonechat. This
is, I believe the same bird that was found on 13 March and which I then saw the
subsequent day. Since then there have been occasional records of a male in the
area and given how good the bird has been at disappearing both times I have
seen it and that it was singing yesterday I reckon we are talking about a
territorial male that has perhaps wandered around a bit in his search for a
mate. I have also seen Kingfisher both visits to Årnestangen and firsts for the
year have been numerous with Wood Sand, Whimbrel and Yellow Wagtail noted.
Maridalen doesn’t get forgotten completely and there has
clearly been ducks moving through with good numbers of Teal aswell as Common
Scoter, Red-breasted Merganser, Pintail, Wigeon and Tufted Duck.
I will start though with a video of Monday's Great Grey Owl nest
male Hen Harrier (myrhauk). My first of the year and never a species I see often but I was still annoyed it wasn't a Pallid (steppehauk)
Kingfisher (isfugl) is now an annual breeder in Nordre Øyeren with probably multiple pairs although they are recorded surprisingly infrequently
female Lapland Bunting (lappspurv)
and here you can hear it calling which is how I discovered it
a (Lesser) Redpoll. It was singing so is I presume a male but completely lacks red/pink on on the chest
Marsh Harrier (sivhauk) pair
and here the male displaying which I think was for the benefit of the additional female that was in the area
Great (White) Egret (egretthegre) and Grey Heron (gråhegre). Lack of plumes means this is an immature bird but they will surely be breeding here soon
they are remarkably acrobatic in flight
and like Grey Herons are quite at home in trees
this Hooded Crow caused the egret to fly off
the Stonechat (svartstrupe) was always quite distant
but up to 7 (all male) early Whinchats (buskskvett) showed much better
