I awoke just before 9 this
morning and a check of my phone revealed a load of bird messages. Andreas was on
his boat and seeing lots of nice things. A great Skua eating a Herring Gull off
the bow of his boat at least provided the answer to the ID of a skua reported by
a number of people over the last couple of days. He also had Gannet and Fulmar
in Oslo territorial waters and the King Eider was still present. This was a bit
too much as it offered two Oslo ticks, so I headed off (although had to first
reassemble all my optics which were already ready for the Værøy trip).
My first destination was
the museums at Bygdøy where I was early enough to park where I shouldn’t park and
have a very short walk to a good vantage point. A flock of 4 Oystercatchers and
a Bar-tailed Godwit was a good start (the godwit being most likely the bird I
had on Nakkholmen last week and which has been reported on and off from Bygdøy
since) and a scan of the fairly calm fjord revealed the Great Skua on water aside
a dead gull. Well that was an easy start! It was a bit distant and soon flew a
bit and allowed some poor photos. After this I headed for Huk where a juvenile
Gannet, and my second Oslo tick in the course of 10 minutes was sitting on the
sea. A further scan revealed that the reported Fulmar was now eating the dead
gull that the skua had previously been on and my twitching could be classified
as a resounding success!
Things got even better
though as Anders BS reported a Yellow-browed Warbler from Fornebu and I discovered
that it only takes 10 minutes to drive there. And after a couple of minutes
wait I heard and then more importantly saw the bird. I’ve never experienced
twitching like this before 😊
Fornebu was very birdy
with lots of Linnets, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and Reed Buntings plus Wheatear,
Whinchat and Long-tailed Tits in the course of under a half hour and I’m sure
there was more lurking out there.
My next update will be from Værøy. Over & out.
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| Yellow-browed Warbler (gulbrynsanger) at Fornebu! |
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| Great Skua (storjo) |
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