The first snow came yesterday and with it the first
Waxwings! I also read in a Swedish Facebook group that Pine Grosbeaks have just
started moving south there so maybe we will have a fantastic late winter autumn
and early winter with rowan trees full of berries, Waxwings and Grozzas!
Despite the trees nearly collapsing under the weight
of the berries there were hardly any thrushes left in Maridalen and 8 Waxwings
and 30 Bramblings outnumbered them. A single Mistle Thrush was unusual though
and I wonder whether it will attempt to spend the winter.
A trip to Østensjøvannet revealed around a 1000
Fieldfare feeding on playing fields and would perhaps explain why I only saw
one in Maridalen. Do Fieldfares prefer worms to berries if they can choose?
The lake was also full of birds with Greylag Geese,
Wigeon, Whooper Swans and Coots the most numerous. Scarcity was provided by a
Scaup feeding at just a few metres range and a couple of Smew at a far greater distance.
The Scaup was a 1st winter and of the sort where you have to
work a bit to convince yourself that it isn’t a female Tufted. There was also a
female Tufted with a very white area around the bill that I worked hard with to
convince myself it wasn’t a Lesser Scaup…
Waxwings (sidensvans) are a very welcome autumn guest
Bramblings (bjørkefink) were also eating the berries
Mistle Thrush (duetrost) together with Waxwings
a very cooperative Scaup (bergand)
I aged the bird as a 1cy female as it differed so much from the young males I saw in the mountains a couple of weeks ago (see next picture) and I noted no grey feathers in the field. But my pictures show there is one greyish feather on the the back so maybe this is also a male but much later in its moulting? Adult females are also greyish on flanks and back so the grey feather I see could also be OK for a female but I am not sure. The dark eye though would seem to be a definite sign if it being a young female.
a bird that looks like a Scaup but isn't. I considered Lesser Scaup but the bill isn't right. It is either a Tufted Duck (toppand) with a lot of white around the bill or maybe a hybrid
I see that I have returned to infrequent blogging
and that is a sign of the seasons although hopefully the discovery of good local
birds will change things soon. There are far fewer birds now with most of the
thrushes seemingly gone and leaving behind enormous quantities of uneaten rowan
berries which will be welcomed by Waxwings and Grosbeaks if they ever get this
far south.
Ducks continue to move through and although the
Scaup on Maridalsvannet last week moved on I had good views of another Scaup
together with three Pochard on the river at Lillestrøm last Friday.
The weekend was spent doing that most Norwegian of
things working at a flee market where the proceeds go to the local school band
(of which Jr Jr is a member). As a sign of the enormous wealth in this country (and
especially the area of Oslo where I live) we raised 100,000 euros selling the
unwanted household items of people in the neighbourhood. And we do this twice a
year.
Today I walked the beast a t Fornebu in glorious
sunny, windless conditions following a heavy overnight frost that had left
puddles and the ground frozen. I hoped to find Bearded Tits which have just started
their usual autumn wanderings but found none. Next on my list was to find a
rare warbler with Dusky the favoured outcome. As usual though for this time of
the year the only warbler to be found was a couple of tristis
Chiffchaffs. Fornebu has a nearly unique ability to attract these otherwise
scarce birds whilst not attracting anything else….
Siberian (tristis) Chiffchaff #1. Nice brown ear coverts and no yellow tones
the only yellow tones are restricted to the underwing coverts
bit more arty shot
tristis #2
again the only yellow tones are on the underwing coverts
Pochards (taffeland)
this male is the adult
the two male Pochards. The right hand bird is a young male with brown patches in amongst the grey feathers and a less red head
Since coming back from the mountains on Saturday
life has rather returned to normal. On Sunday morning I did have a specific
birding outing to Maridalen with Jack where I hoped that in addition to
enjoying his company that I could help him find the 2 species he needs to take
him to the milestone of 150 species in Oslo for the year. We failed on that
score and it hasn’t helped matters that in the three days since then that I
have seen five species that Jack needs with four of these being in the Dale..
The four Dale species are Great Grey Shrike, Scaup,
Rough-legged Buzzard and Peregrine and the fifth was a Rock Pipit at Huk,
Bygdøy.
It has suddenly become very late autumnal and last
night saw the first frost of the autumn. There has been a big clear out of
birds with the Greylags and Whooper Swans gone from Maridalen, far fewer
finches and Meadow Pipits but still quite few thrushes. A small arrival of
ducks today included 3 Tufted and Scaup and the next few weeks may see more
ducks as mountain wetlands freeze over and birds leave for the coast. There
have been up to 8 Guillemots on the lake and many more on the fjord where a
number of dead birds have been found. Quite what causes these near annual
arrivals and dead birds is uncertain but there are clearly food shortages somewhere.
Almost all dead birds are 1cy birds and any ringed birds found come from the UK.
Østensjøvannet is still full of birds with 200 Wigeon
a joint highest Oslo count and 82 Mute Swans the second highest.
Scaup (bergand) - it is noticeably larger than the 3 Tufted Ducks (toppand) and 2 Goldeneye (kvinand) it is with
Great Grey Shrike (varsler)
female Gadwall (snadderand) and Wigeon (brunnakke) at Østensjøvannet
Shoveler (skjeand)
Wigeon (brunnakke)
a Long-tailed Tit (stjertmeis) in Maridalen - this species has been scarce so far this autumn
a frosty morning in the Dale
a lonely Mute Swan (knoppsvane) in Maridalen. After the breeding pair failed this spring they moved to the fjord where the male was found dead. This is possibly the female from that pair
This week is autumn half term school holiday in Norway and a week when any self respecting birder finds himself on an island (usually Utsira) looking for the wing bars and eye stripes that are the hallmarks of rare vagrant birds. I must be lacking in self respect as I have never found myself on an island during this week (blame it on kids who don’t like birds) and this week we were in the mountains at Beitostølen. This was our first autumn trip here so I was interested to see what the birdlife would be like.
The drive up revealed rowan trees weighed down with berries the whole way and the reason was that flocks of thrushes were still gorging themselves on the tree line and have not begun moving south yet.
The cabin we were staying at was lower down than usual at 700m and bordering onto forest. I hoped for Sibe Jay, owls and woodpeckers. I did have Tengmalm’s Owl and Grey-headed Woodpecker but the only sibe I had was a YELLOW-BROWED WARBLER!! Wings bars and eye stripes had come to me and suddenly I couldn’t care less about islands or lack of them! This species is very scarce in Norway this autumn - Kjell is on Værøy now and hasn’t seen one - so for one to turn up here was very unexpected. It did not call once so I was very lucky to focus on it as a roving mixed flock went past me.
Trips on to Valdresflye revealed snow over 2000m but even lower down at 1400m there were far fewer birds than I had expected. A single Meadow Pipit was the only passerine (I had wondered wherher there would be Snow Buntings and Shore Larks) and a small flock of Dunlin flying over the only waders. The lakes held six species of duck though with Scaup and Long-tailed Ducks the highlights and an indication of successful breeding for what are now rare breeding birds in the south of the country. Interestingly puddles were full of crane fly larvae so there was an food source if more waders had been around.
I am writing this on the mobile and the photos have come out in the wrong order so you will have to scroll past landscape and Beast pictures to get to the birds 😂
This Meadow Pipit (heipiplerke) was the only passine I encounted on Valdresflye
I was hoping for Siberian Jay but got a real Sibe instead! Yellow-browed Warbler (gulbrynsanger)
The crown stripe was surprisingly obvious on this bird
This Merlin (dvergfalk) was the only raptor on Valdresflye and a surprise given the lack of passerines
Two 1cy male Scaup (bergand) together with a male Tufted Duck (toppand)
These larvae of a species of crane fly (stankelbein) were in every puddle
This Chiffchaff (gransanger) was in the same area as the Yb Warbler and was also completely silent
Postscript:
After I wrote this blog post we went on a final walk which gave me 4 Siberian Jays in the same area as my summer sightings as well as a Green Woodpecker in spruce forest at 800m which must be an extreme sighting for this species.
