Winter really won’t let go this year. A lot of wet snow fell
last night and any birds like Skylarks or Lapwings that have returned will be
having big problems now although I expect the majority are wise enough to have
headed south again.
I thought that the snow would make a trip to Fornebu
worthwhile. It is nearly six weeks since Bearded Tits were reported there but I
reckoned there was still a chance they were there and with heavy wet snow there
was a higher chance that they would be feeding at the tops of the reeds. I
didn’t have to wait very long until I heard a bird and it was relatively close
but very frustratingly I never saw it more likely them. What was very exciting
though was that in addition to the usual “ping” call I heard song. I have never
heard the song before and it is a very brief affair which sounds a bit like a
Magpie but the sound matches written descriptions and was the same as this
recording:
Bearded Tits can start egg laying in early April so there is
a chance that there will actually be breeding here which would be a first if
confirmed although May records from 2005 and 2001 are a strong indication of
breeding.
A walk around Nansenpark didn’t reveal a single migrant bird
(so no Twite, Skylarks or Snow Buntings).
At Bygdøy the Greylag Geese continue to increase
and I counted 99. Finding food was a struggle and each bird had dug its own
hole in the snow and was eating brown grass – yummy! PS. I forgot to mention that I saw my first Shelduck lgying forlornly over a frozen bay at Fornebu but that now means that all eight of the early spring migrants have fallen.
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| The goose field at the Kings Farm on Bygdøy |
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| yummy yummy! |
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| some of the birds (I assume males) were a bit cranky |
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| somewhere in there was a singing Bearded Tit (skjeggmeis) - a birding first for me |
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