OSLO BIRDER: Back in the lowlands

Friday, 5 June 2020

Back in the lowlands

Back in Oslo where the sun is very hot which makes takng my sunburnt body outside quite uncomfortable. The undoubted highlight on Tueday was a Hobby hunting a Swift in Maridalen. The Swift chose to fly within a couple of meters of me and the Hobby followed until it saw me and put on the brakes just a couple of metres away and went vertical above my head. I had hoped to see Hobby hunting dragonflies but I guess one Swift is of far more value to the Hobby than a whole mornings worth of Dragons.

A pair of Goshawks were displaying in a new location but I believe they are the pair that has not bred this year at their usual location after having built a new nest which took too long to construct. Marsh Warbler is now back in the Dale so all the expected breeding species have returned and a male Red-backed Shrike looked to have a territory at one of the sites where they bred last year (and has been hunting from posts used by a GG Owl earlier in the year 😊 ) and Wrynecks are also breeding. Icerine Warblers seem to be numerous this year and I heard a number of birds singing as I drove around with the window down but there do not seem to be many Wood Warblers this year.

Lapwing and Mute Swan are still on eggs but both Whooper Swans and Teal have broods of 8 young. At the Three-toed Pecker nest the male was taking his turn on the eggs and I was surprised to find a GS Pecker nest with loudly calling youngsters only 50m away. The fact that these two species tolerate each other shows how different their diets must be.

With the heat there are more butterflies and dragon and damselflies on the wing although I feel that there are fewer butterflies than last year.

Yesterday I had a successful trip to Nordre Øyeren. With easterly winds and a rain front moving through I hoped for some rare vagrants but had to content myself with local breeding birds with 2 Redshank and 3 Ringed Plover being the only spring migrants still moving through and a Green Sandpiper may well have been an autumn migrant. Marsh Warblers were singing vigourosly and as is often the case some birds need listening to for a long time to be satisfied that they are not something rarer. A young male Common Rosefinch also sang as did Icterine Warblers and Thrush Nightingale. A Honey Buzzard flew over seemingly on migration (as were two in Maridalen later in the day) but the real highlight was seeing two young Long-eared Owls just out of the nest.

Today in Maridalen Anders found a singing Reed Warbler which I rushed up to listen to and this surprisingly is the first record of the species in the Dale. This comes on top of the reported Sedge Warbler earlier in May which will also be a new species if confirmed.

young Long-eared Owl (hornugle). As with other owl species the young leave the nest long before they can fly or look after themselves. At night they reveal their presence by loudly begging for food and by day try to hide as best they can

this individual is downier than the first bird and therefore a younger bird

Common Rosefinch (rosenfink). Despite its brown colours this bird sang and revealed it is a young (2cy) male

Green Woodpecker (grønnspett)

One of three seemingly migrating Honey Buzzards (vepsevåk) I saw yesterday. This one is a female due to darker secondaries and less well marked barring in the tail