On Wednesday a nice picture of a male King Eider reminded
me that there are birds other than THE Trio. The King was seen by a couple of intrepid
photographers out on a boat and is a returning bird that was first seen in the
autumn of 2018 when it was a 2cy and is therefore a 4cy (3rd winter)
now. Although it’s plumage is that of adult male the size of the bill is still
a long way short of proper old birds such as this one.
Halvard H was keen to give himself a birthday
present and took today off work and was keen to get out in his boat. I was
lucky enough to join him but we only just got out as overnight temperatures of
around -5C had combined with a windless night to leave a layer of ice over the
fjord. It was really quite magic to be out there in such conditions. On our way
out we were in ice free water as a big cruise boat had just gone through but
half an hour layer it was all iced over again. The small boat coped admirably
well as an ice breaker but I must admit to wondering exactly how we would survive
if we had a Titanic moment. Needless to say we aw no other small boats out on
the water..
We realised early on that the ice would probably put
paid to our attempts to see the King and indeed the area where it was seen on
Wednesday was iced over. We checked all other likely places where there was
open water but found little with a few newly arrived Greylag Geese and Common
Eider being the most noteworthy although we did see Twite, Rock Pipit and
Purple Sandpipers that have been around all winter. Genrerally there have been
extremely low numbers of seaduck in the Oslo Fjord this winter which is a
worrying development.
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| the cruise boat made it a bit choppy but did clear the ice |
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| which otherwise was surprisingly thick given that it was no colder than -5C overnight |
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| seal and the Huldra ferry coming into Nesodden |
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| Purple Sandpiper (fjæreplytt) |
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| 7 birds together (another 2 were out of shot) |
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| Rock Pipit (skjærpiplerke) |
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| Twite (bergirisk) |
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