Gleden av fugler

Today I spoke to my eldest daughters class about birds for a full hour and a half. They have had a project on birds so they were very happy to have a real life "bird expert" to talk to them. My presentation was called "Gleden av fugler" (The Joy of Birds) and hopefully there will be a few more youngsters to swell the (small) ranks of birders in Oslo.

I squeezed in two visits to Maridalen either side of the presentation. Finally there are sone ducks on the lake. In the morning there were 9 Goldeneye (kvinand) and 11 Common Scoter (svartand) and in the afternoon the Common Scoter flock had risen to 18 and the Whooper Swan (sangsvane) family were also present. I have seen Common Scoter on Maridalsvannet a few times before but never more than 4 birds together so 18 was a pretty good flock. They were actively moving around the lake but were not diving very much so I guess there is little food for them here and they will be gone tomorrow.

The Hawk Owl (haukugle) was reported again today so looks like it had survived the cars. Tomorrow Rune and I are going to go exploring the forests where we saw the Tengmalm's Owls (perleugle) and will hopefully find Hawk Owl here.