Flippin snow

Another day of falling snow where being inside and not driving was the smartest choice and further obervations of the gardens Blackbirds followed. I finally managed to take better pictures of the definite 2cy male Blackbird but are still unsure about the other bird.  On these pictures you can see the browner wing feathers contrasting with blacker body feathers which is typical of 1^st winter birds whereas the other bird had a more uniform colour suggesting it is an adult and therefore cannot be a male.

There was also a new adult Blackbird with a large amount of black on the bill or so I thought. The pictures actually show it has a lot of muck on its bill in addition to some black so could well be a bird I’ve recorded previously. These pictures show that it has black wing feathers meaning it is an adult rather than a 2cy (1^st winter) and therefore does show that there is a lot of variation in the bill colour of adults (3cy + ). Following me? Intersted? Probably not….

The  2cy male Blackbird

one of the black-billed females and not, I think, the one I've shown before

red female

the male with dirt on his bill

 Well I didn’t find it that interesting either and instead decided to head out but today with rather more public transport and a tad less walking. Checking the downtown gull sites revealed nothing interesting (a white-winged gull must surely turn up soon) except for a very smart yellow-legged Herring Gull (rather than Yellow-legged Gull) but at Aker Brygge the dolphin was again showing well. It was once again keeping to a very small area (reminds me of tales of tigers that have lived in cages and once released into bigger enclosure continue to pace the same small area of their old cage) but had moved a couple of hundred metres from yesterday. Today it was possible to take pictures with the city’s landmarks in the background. I switched to my 18-55mm lens today which made finding the animal in the view finder easier and also gave the pictures and video more context.

A local boat owner asked me if I was watching the Porpoise (nise). I replied that it was a Bottle-nosed Dolphin (tumler) but he said he and the other boat owners were sure this was a porpoise although there has been a dolphin before and they believe there are 3-4 individuals. His reason for this being a nise were that it was larger than a dolphin, wasn’t jumping as the dolphin had and was darker. The size argument is incorrect as adult Bottle-noses are upto 3.5metres whereas Porpoises are rarely over 1.5m. I had actually worried that this animal was too small but that was more an illusion from being so close as when viewing the animal at longer range today it was clearly much too large for a porpoise. That it isn’t jumping is I imagine more to do with how it is feeling and it wouldn’t surprise me that with the cold weather it has less desire to jump. The colour though is very dark for a Bottle-nose and also worried me yesterday. However I have found pictures of individuals that are so dark, see here , and colour is clearly very variable in this species. In addition it is beaked although this has been hard to see and this rule out porpoise. I have looked at other dolphin species or small toothed whales but can’t find anything else it could be.

 

dolphin with the City Hall (Rådhuset) in the background

and Akershus Festning

To give an impression of size - here from Aker Brygge with Hovedøya in the background. The video an other pictures were taken by the boats on the right when the animal was right by the boats

adult Comorant (storskarv) in breeding plumage. This bird is of the southern race sinensis which used to be considered scarce in Norway but now has a colong at the Great Big Dump (Øra) which numbers hundreds if not thousands of pairs and this now appears to be commoner than the northern race carbo around Oslo



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This Herring Gull really stood out with its yellow legs and clean (unstreaked) head (although a few other adults also had clean heads). Such a bird naturally leads your thoughts towards Yellow-legged Gull (gulbeinmåke) but this is actually just a Herring Gull with yellow legs. Note here that the eyering is orange instead of red and.....

 

the wing has much too little black

 

 

Flipper

I had plans to “do” Oslo by public transport and foot today but in the end it was a lot of foot and just a little public transport. I walked at least 15km and felt that I deserved a good result which I did in fact get although not a bird.

My route took me via the little park at Marienlyst which held a Med Gull a couple of winters ago. No Med Gull but this park continues to hold the vast majority of Oslo’s over-wintering Common Gulls (fiskemåke) with over 100 present. There was just a single Herring Gull (gråmåke) here plus 3 B-h Gulls (hettemåke). Elsewhere in town it is nearly only Herring Gulls one encounters but for some reason this park has monopolised Common Gulls but excluded the Herrings. The reason the park is popular is that a string of old ladies feed the birds here which also explains the 8 Collared Doves (tyrkerdue) and over 100 House Sparrows (gråspurv).

In Frognerparken there were 5 wintering Teal (krikkand) plus 2 adult Grey Herons (gråhegre) feeding in the stream. I reached the fjord at Frognerkilen and then walked the waterfront all the way to the Opera. I was hoping for a rare gull, some auks or a diver or grebe. Well none of that happened – it was depressingly quite. At Aker Brygge (very downtown Oslo) I walked up to the waters edge to scan hoping for a Little Auk and nearly straightaway heard the snort of a breathing cetacean. Looking down there was a dolphin less than 10 metres from me!! I realised that a couple of other people standing nearby were already watching it and it amazingly stayed in the same small area for the next 40 minutes I was there. It would be under for around three minutes before coming up to breathe when it would break the surface between 3 and 5 times before diving again. A couple of times it rolled onto its side but there were no acrobatics to witness. A Bottle-nosed Dolphin (tumler) has been reported every now again in the Inner Oslofjord since May and has been filmed by others see here including it jumping and here from the same location on Christmas day and I was sure this had to be the same animal but was it really a Bottle-nose I was watching? It did not resemble the Bottle-noses I’ve seen in dolphinariums or on TV but after studying my pictures I can see that it is and it was just very hard to see the head properly as it never really held its head out of the water. Filming it was also difficult as I never knew where it would come up and it was up so briefly each time. It was also so close that it was difficult getting a wide field of view.

 

My video where you can here the dolphin snorting and me sniffing. The bells are from the Oslo Town Hall at noon:

 

 

rolling on its side

the white mark on the left hand side of the dorsal fin is a good character to identify this individual. Notice also the blow hole

 

here it looks more like a pilot whate

but this shot shows the distinct "bottle nose"

Grey Heron in Frognerpark

another attempt at low shutter speed artiness

Great Tit in the Botanical Gardens where I ended my day

Hawfinch and Fieldfare in Botanical Gardens

 

some Common Gulls, like this one, have a pink hue to their underparts but it is not captured so vividly in this photo as I experienced it live