OSLO BIRDER: Another? and even more urban Ural Owl

Sunday 13 November 2022

Another? and even more urban Ural Owl

Things have gotten very interesting since Wednesday’s Ural Owl. That sighting was naturally posted in the local Facebook bird group which with 7000 members includes people with the whole spectrum of interest in birds (there are less than 100 birders in Oslo that I would describe as committed). The next day a comment was posted with a picture asking if this [the bird in a mobile phone picture] was also a Ural Owl. I assumed the picture was taken at, or close to, the location of the first sighting but no, the picture (which was indeed of a Ural Owl) was in a downtown part of Oslo and in a tree along a street! A couple of local birders searched the streets and nearby parks that same evening (after dark though) but no owl was seen. The next day though the owl was again seen and pictures were again posted on FB asking what it was (it wasn’t a Tawny Owl as an “expert” told the local newspaper…). On Saturday morning I had decided to take the Beast for a walk there (only half an hour from home) but whilst still eating my breakfast a message came through from Kjell Isaksen who lives nearby that he had already found the owl in a park. The dog walk was forgotten and I jumped on my bike and 10 minutes later I was watching my second Ural Owl in Oslo!!

It was roosting high up in a willow tree that still had a number of leaves but had been found by the local Crows and Magpies which it tried to ignore and they all kept a safe distance whilst shouting at it. There are a number of dense spruce trees in the park and it surprised me that it hadn’t chosen one of these but even so it was still well hidden and getting an unobstructed view was nigh on impossible. The news spread very quickly and many locals came to see it and wondered what the fuss was about. Seeing how large it was and learning how rare it was impressed the vast majority of “civilians” though.

I returned in the afternoon with Jr hoping to see it do something than just dozing (the bird on Wednesday had become active just after sunset) and sure enough at 16:25 it left its roost. There were few people left by that time but as you can hear in the video those who were were mightly impressed to see it in flight. It then proceeded to actively look for food from perches and was eventually (after I had gone home as Jr’s interest had expired) followed by Kjell as it flew over some appartments to another area of trees where he was able to see it by the light of street lamps.

This bird raises two questions. Firstly, is it the same bird originally seen the previous day about 12km away? A study of pictures may be able to prove one way or the other but if it is the same bird then it is just amazing that a normally so secretive species would turn up in such unexpected locations and be found (most rare birds are of course never seen….). If it is two different birds then what has caused them to turn up so far out of range and in urban locations?

The second question is what is it eating in urban Oslo? There are of course various birds and must be rats and mice but whilst we watched it in the evening it seemed most interest in dogs and a small pomeranian being walked under the tree it sat in really caught its attention 😉. Many people have assumed that there must be something wrong with it and that it must be starving and desperately looking for food but we really do not know if that is the case at all (urban sightings seem to be regular in Finland and Sweden). The park where the second bird is has had sighting of both Hawk Owl and Short-eared Owl in the last few years so undoubtedly has some natural attraction for owls.

The owl has not been seen today but will hopefully turn up again.

Other than the Ural Owl I had a real surprise in Maridalen with a Kingfisher. For a Kingfisher to still be inland in the middle of November is a real sigh of how mild it is. With temperatures up to +15C then it will be a good while before streams freeze over. It was in an area with lots of beaver activity which has created lots of pools and undoubtedly is attractive for small fish.

Pygmy Owls have also been showing themselves and there are a number of different birds in Maridalen this autumn. In one area a male and a female (based on different calls) seem to have adjacent winter territories and it will great if they are still around in the spring. I was able to follow the female on Friday and she visited one of her larders (an old woodpecker hole) and came out with a dead mouse. With it being so warm the food (dead meat) in their larders risks going bad so it makes sense to eat it now (rather than later in the winter when conditions may make hunting impossible) rather than it going to waste.