Failed Oslo twitching

Monday saw me out at Årnestangen and Svellet. Årnestangen didn’t have too much to reward the long walk but at least 4 different Marsh Harriers kept up my hopes of finding a Pallid Harrier. The might Svellet though had a lot more to offer though with 3 Blackwit, 2 Barwit, Shoveler, Little Gull, Hobby and Turnstone – it’s just a shame distances are so long here.

Whilst I was there a message came in that a juv Med Gull had been foolish enough to allow itself to be blinged in Oslo. Maybe this was the same bird that had blown past me on 10 August? Later in the evening a grainy picture of a supposed Great White Egret was published from a lake in the forest just north of Maridalen was published and I hatched a plan for Tuesday.

I needed to go into town so planned on refinding the Med Gull, getting the chores out of the way and then going for the egret. Well, the fact that I was twitching meant of course that nothing went to plan. The gull didn't show and the egret turned out to be a leucistic Grey Heron although luckily this was discovered before I set off. A pukka GWE turned up at Årnestangen though....and I must have walked past a King Eider.....

My birding wasn't that bad though. I had two male Bluethroats on Bygdøy and got to see an interesting goose. This goose has been doing the rounds since the spring and has variously been recorded as a Cackling Goose and as Canada Goose of the race parvipes. It was only after it (and the Barnacles it has been associating with) turned up in Oslo though that its true identity has been discovered.

It is clearly a hybrid between some form of Canada Goose and Barnacle Goose and its tiny size points clearly to it being a Cackling Goose rather than Canada although it will still most likely a feral bird as the Barnacles are not from Svalbard but from the huge southern Scandinavian feral population and such hybrids are known in Northern Europe. 

The Black Redstarts showed well in their favoured area near the Akershus Festning castle and there were at least 3 birds: mum and dad and at least one youngster. Dad looks to be in quite nice plumage and may have moulted already whereas mum looked quite tatty.

the small size of the hybrid goose is very apparant here. It superficially looks to be a pure Cackling/Canada but the grey greater coverts with a black band at the end and pale tips are wrong and a clear sign of Barnacle Goose. In addition the breast is dark (although not black) further down than it is on Cackling /Canada

the white on the forehead is also a sign of Barnacle. The pale neck ring suits some forms of Cackling

1cy Black Redstart

here there are 2 birds. On the top is a 1cy bird and the lower bird is a tatty adult female

closer shot of the adult female. Her tatty plumage is as a result of active moult

the adult male

male Bluethroat

yet again I am unsure as to age. The colouring on the throat suggests and adult but the pale edges to the greater coverts visible here say 1cy?

Start with a Chat

Birding is being fitted in around fatherly duties at the moment but I did fit in a quick morning visit to Maridalen and a downtown shopping trip also provided a birding opportunity.

It was chats (including thrushes and starts) that were the highlights. In Maridalen Bluethroats (4) nearly outnumbered Whinchats (5) and downtown I eventually (after around 10 attempts) caught up with the breeding Black Redstarts which everyman and his dog has seen before me this year.

The Bluethroats prevented a bit of an ageing and sexing challenge. Of the birds I saw well one was clearly a 1cy female but another bird may well have been an adult male (see pictures and comments).

this Bluethroat (blåstrupe) is clearly a male and is so richly coloured I would assume an adult. The easiest way to age is looking at the greater coverts and the buff edges would suggest this is a young bird BUT if you compare with the bird below which has an obvious wing bar caused by the buff tips to the greater coverts then I am not sure

this bird is a 1cy female. 1cy because of the obvious wing bar and female as no blue or red colours on throat/breast

another male most likely same as first bird

the tail is very good ID feature on a flushed bird seen briefly

this is the same male

male again

1cy female looking almost thrush like

and the 1cy female again

a Whinchat (buskskvett)

Black Redstart (svartrødstjert). Adult male (right) and a youngster begging for food

the male is starting to look scruffy.

close up of wing formula of one of the juveniles

juvenile Black Redstart

eating berries

and looking for insects on ground

the two youngsters together

Slogging it for an Arctic roly polly

Yesterday I paid a visit to the Drøbak area and notched up a couple of Great Grey Shrikes, Little Grebe and Rock Pipit for my troubles. Today I did my traditional Oslo New Year birding by public transport and foot outing. I visited the Botanical Gardens, the harbour seafront, Bygdøy and Frognerpark and walked 14km so have hopefully burnt off a few of those extra xmas calories.

The Botanical Gardens were good for finches with 3 species/forms of Redpoll with a white male Arctic the highlight, plus Hawfinch, Crossbill, Brambling, Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Goldfinch. A young male Goshawk also showed well, and I could make out a Peregrine sitting distantly on the top of Oslo’s tallest building.

The harbour was very quiet with hardly any gulls and Bygdøy and Frognerpark offered up the expected species but nothing too exciting.

Redpolls are as is well known a complete mess and the latest taxonomical status is that they should all be lumped together which suites me just fine. This year is a good redpoll year in Norway and a bird trapped recently in Denmark with a Chinese ring gives an indication that some of these birds have travelled great distances. We could realistically have birds from Greenland/Iceland, Southern and Northern Scandinavia and from the whole of Siberia all mingling at the moment. Certainly today there was a good variety in the Botanical Gardens and that was only in a flock of about 15 birds. The Arctic Redpoll was a fairly simple bird but there was also another bird that could have been an Arctic of the less obvious variety. There was a small warm coloured bird that fitted the bill for a Lesser(southern) and then amongst the rest there were small birds, large birds, cold grey birds and warmer browner birds. Treating them as a single clinal species does seem the most pragmatic thing to do!

one of those snowbal birds - an Arctic Redpoll 

look at the contrast! The bird on the right is probably a Lesser

the single black feather on the undertail coverts is rather obvious but OK

this bird never showed any better than this but was possibly also an Arctic

a Lesser Redpoll (brunsisik)

three Mealy/Common Redpolls

a few other birds in the Botanical Gardens

a 2cy male Goshawk (hønsehauk)

same bird in flight looking like a thrush

Adult male Black Redstart in moult

Updates on this blog are becoming less frequent than a rarity in Oslo. There are many reasons for this with the latest being a recurrence of a trapped nerve leaving me a bit immobile but a good dose of anti-inflammatories seems to have helped. I still have little desire to spend time in front of the computer though which I see as a good sign (still in holiday mood) but also means that I have yet to finish going through holiday pictures and videos.

A lunch date today in the city centre with old colleagues (from those distant times when I had an office based career) gave me a chance to look for the Black Redstarts that have bred this year (Norway’s only pair?) and I also had the bazooka with me so was hoping for some good photos. I found the adult male but no youngsters. The male was actively feeding in a small area but I saw no sign that he was collecting food for youngsters in a second or even third brood. He was also in heavy moult and looking very tatty and unmale like. In fact, in many ways he looked like a young bird or female bird with the only give away that he was an adult male being the white wing patch on black flight feathers.  Searching online I haven’t manage to find other pictures in moult but the grey new feathers around the face do seem to agree with the written description of flesh plumage in BWP. The grey (and brown) tips wear off to reveal the black feathering that one sees in spring (worn) plumage.

Adult male Black Redstart (svartrødstjert) in active moult. The bird is aged and sexed due to the white wing patch on the black flight feathers. The gret and brown feathers on the head are new feathers that will wear down to be black 

levitating

here it looks like it has a loose secondary feather and is also missing greater coverts 

the brown feathers on the head and breast are very noticeable. Could they also be dirt?

I don't think dirt is the explanation though as here one can see that the different coloured feathers seem to be of different quality

surprisingly he often flew high up into trees

A landscape photo from Årnestangen a damp morning last week with a Marsh Harrier (sivhauk)