Advancing autumn

There has been little from me on the blog front recently due to there being little to see and bad weather. Yesterday and today I did get out and about though and noted a few interesting birds.

Yesterday I headed out east hoping to find interesting geese and ducks. There were thousands of Greylag Geese but nothing exciting amongst them. I didn’t note a single raptor but three Great Grey Shrikes is a sure sign of the advancing autumn.

Today it rained all day but Maridalen was full of birds with hundreds of Redwing, Fieldfare and Bramblings, tens of Waxwings plus the first Common Scoter and Great Grey Shrike of the autumn.

Long-tailed Tit (stjertmeis) in Maridalen

Waxwing (sidensvans)

Goldcrest (fuglekonge) in Maridalen

one of the Great Grey Shrikes (varsler) from yesterday - the wing band shows it to be a bird born this year

the mighty Svellet held a huge resting flock of Barnacle (hvitkinn) and Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås)

There are still a few Pochard (taffeland) at Hellesjøvannet but there was very little else there

Shovelers (skjeand) seem to be more widespread than usual this autumn and this 1cy male? (because of the pale(ish) eye?) is a Bogstadvannet in Oslo

the Whooper Swan (sangsvane) pair are still in autumn and favouring the same field as in previous years in the late autumn

a truly terrible shot but this Guillemot (lomvi) inland at Svellet was a real surprise given that we haven't had any storms to drive seabirds into our area