Good autumn day

 This weekend I have been a good citizen / parent and have worked pretty much all the daylight hours at a second hand market at the local school. This is all part of being a good Norwegian and is how the richest country in the world funds music at its schools (don’t get me started…). Whilst I was stood in the rain (I was lucky enough to be working outside..) messages kept pinging on my phone confirming that the Dusky Warbler was still present although it was just as skulky as when I found it and no photos were managed so I will have to write that description.

This weekend also saw one of the best Norwegian twitching stories that I know of. A Barn Owl (extreme rarity in Norway) was found last week on the island of Store Færder (where I was in the beginning of September) and a carload drove from the Stavanger area over night, got a boat out to the island and dipped the bird despite it having been in the morning. Then when what is probably the same bird was seen by a single observer on Saturday on the nearby mainland and they drove over night again and this time scored and saw it with thermal bins before dawn (no local birders/twitchers have managed so connect so these long distance twitchers deserve their tick!).

 

Today was started off as a fantastic autumn day with no wind and cloudy skies. I thought that Fornebu could come up trumps and if I didn’t find a major rarity (as if) then there should be something good like perhaps a Bearded Tit which have just started their autumn irruptions from breeding sites further south. There were clearly lots of birds on the move with 4 flocks of Waxwings, Twite, a late White Wagtail and Meadow Pipits plus other finches and thrushes but surprisingly no Chiffchaffs (of any race). I picked out a single Jack Snipe with the thermal camera (I’m getting rather hooked on it) and best bird was a female Grey-headed Woodpecker which I picked up on call and then got to see very well in the same area as a couple of Green Woodpeckers. This is my first record of the species at Fornebu.

A quick check of Maridalen revealed two Great Grey Shrikes together in the same tree and they looked to both be adults so were perhaps a pair that has left their breeding site together.

 

Here is my eBird checklist from Fornebu.

Grey-headed Woodpecker (gråspett). The lack of red on the head shows this is a female

and a Green Woodpecker (grønnspett). The all black mustache (lacking red) shows this is also a female

Waxwing (sidensvans)

2 Great Grey Shrikes (varsler) in Maridalen

Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin)

Shovelers (skjeand) from Friday at Østensjøvannet