Despite me posting a part 1 of my summary of the year it isn’t
over quite yet and I have managed to fit in some birding around festive and
family activities. On the 22nd I guided Emily and Diane from
California for a very cold and crisp couple of hours at Huk, Bygdøy. We had a
good haul of typical species with Purple Sandpipers headlining.
And today I saw one of the Maridalen Pygmy Owls for the first
time in over a month and although I think food is hard for it to find I did see
it with rodent in its claws.
We suddenly had a change in the weather just before Christmas
with temperatures falling below zero and with no wind ice immediately formed in
the bays at Fornebu. We also got the thinnest layer of snow on Christmas Eve so
had a white Christmas too.
Maridalsvannet always takes a long time to freeze over but
has started freezing over in the bays and there is a chance it will mostly freeze
over before the New Year (when in a normal winter it will definitely be frozen)
although I suspect it may take a bit longer.
Pygmy Owl (spurveugle) in the Dale
Cormorants (storskarv) at Huk
and Purple Sandpipers (fjæreplytt) same place
Waxwings (sidensvans) are still in the area where I live and a couple joined Fieldfares that were eating wind fallen apples in the garden
Dausjøelva in Maridalen on 27th Dec
and looking over Nesbukta on the 26th with the first ice forming
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
Well, I can no longer complain about the weather being too
nice as it is raining and blowing and if, maybe if, I were to venture outside
there could be a whole tree of wing bars waiting for me.
I escaped Oslo’s weather on Tuesday and Wednesday with an
impromptu visit to Tromsø to give Jr some much needed TLC. I arrived to 15cm of
fresh snow and blue skies. There is only one month left of sunshine before the
sun doesn’t rise for two whole months and even now the sun was always low in
the sky. There are still lots of rowan berries in Tromsø which is in stark
contrast to Oslo where a very poor crop was stripped from the trees by thrushes
weeks ago. There were few birds in Tromsø though. I had a good walk when Jr was
at lectures and 60 odd Waxwings was the absolute highlight and also the
commonest passerine (just 30 or so Fieldfares). On the fjord there were flocks
of Eider that were too distant for me to grill and also Long-tailed Ducks. I was
surprised to find a Curlew but otherwise the muddy bay where I had spent much
time in September was a bird free zone.
a Waxwing (sidensvans) in Tromsø
A trip to Fornebu yesterday did reveal some new and slightly
exciting birds. A Wheatear at the same spot as the Turtle Dove had been had, of
course, to be looked at properly but was just of the common variety. It is
truly late record though. A tern then caused me quite a headache. A tern close
to Oslo at the end of October has to be an Arctic but with my tern
problems from September still troubling me and the knowledge that a Common Tern
was seen (and photographed) in the same spot less than 2 weeks ago I was
determined to make sure I got the ID of this one right. In flight from a distance
it did indeed look like an Arctic but I managed to get so close to the bird
that I think I lost the bigger picture. I spent a long time with it perched
just metres from me and also fishing close by (it was snatching small fish from
the water surface) and ended up concluding that it was a 1st winter Common
Tern although the lack of a clear dark bar on the secondaries was at odds with
this but I explained that to myself by it being an advanced bird that had
somehow moulted these to adult feathers already (something that they don’t do).
Later on someone else reported the bird as an Arctic and I quickly replied that
I reckoned it was a Common…. This quickly prompted me to look at my pictures on
the PC (instead of on the back of the camera) and I couldn’t help but agree that
it must be an Arctic although I still find it to be a far from classic bird but
I think that may be because I am not used to seeing them so close at this time
of the year. The more distant flight photos are much easier to ID from.
The hope of a wing bar or two survives with a visit to Værøy
next week now on the cards. This late in the autumn there may well be no
Yellow-browed Warblers but hopefully far greater rarities from even further east.
Or most likely absolutely sweet FA.
a late Wheatear (steinskvett)
it my have been difficult for me to ID this young Arctic Tern (rødnebbterne) but it was not difficult to get close to it
if I had just had this picture from when I first saw it distantly then I think I would have never thought twice about it being a 1cy Arctic
getting a bit closer it is still fairly straightforward
with one of a number of fish it snatched from the waters surface
it was pictures like this that confused me as I expected the secondaries to be pure white but the secondaries are actually mostly hidden under the greater coverts
I also got confused by that I thought were too long legs and too much red on the bill
no real doubt what it is from this picture either
Jack Snipe are still around and the "hunt" for them remains exciting even if I use the thermal
spot Jack?
using the flash on a dull autumn day brings our far more colours
In Maridalen there are now 11 Whooper Swans with the lone subadult now seemingly having attracted a mate and today a lone Pink-footed Goose had joined them
Whooper Swans (sangsvane) the family of 4 which I am sure are the valleys long term birds
2 of the same birds
the additional 7 birds a family of 5 and the two birds below
the bird on the right which is not fully adult turned up first alone and has now been joined by this other bird
a Pink-footed Goose (kortnebbgås). There has been a widespread influx of out of course Taiga Bean Geese in Norway and beyond (including to Ireland for the first time in over a decade) so when I first saw there was a goose with the swans I really hoped that is what it would be
the field that the swans use has also been very popular with Jays (nøtteskrike) with up to 20 feeding there
