Sunday 24 November 2019

And now for something completely different!


Since my last post there have of course been lots more Grosbeaks but I have not wanted to bore you with even more pictures of this species that still fascinates me. Thankfully though there have been other species that have attracted my attention and especially today when I went out with Halvard H on his boat around the islands of the inner Oslo fjord. It was unsurprisingly very cold but we managed four hours although there were disappointingly few birds to see. We had hoped to see both the male King Eider and adult Med Gull that were seen (from land) yesterday (both probably returning birds from last winter) but we failed in this respect. What we did see were fairly good numbers of Razorbills and Guillemots but few ducks with Velvet Scoters the commonest (but less than 50 in total) and a single Long-tailed Duck the rarest. Waders though were well represented with 22 Purple Sandpipers being the highest count EVER in Oslo and Akershus and a Jack Snipe a very unexpected find by a small pond on a small island.

After 4 hours on the boat I was very cold, stiff and tired but was persuaded to take Jr for our first downhill skiing outing of the winter. That I was able to see 16 drive by Grosbeaks on the way just made the day even better 😊 

Crested Tit (toppmeis) in Maridalen

pairs of Whooper and Mute Swans in Maridalen

Long-tailed Duck (havelle)

Purple Sandpipers (fjæreplytt)


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