Ice is coming

We have now had a few nights of frost and with very little wind and daytime temperatures also staying cold I visited Østensjøvannet expecting it to be mostly covered in ice. In fact the lake was ice free with just some ice on the edges although the wrongly named Wader Pond (just Pond would suffice) was frozen. I was a bit surprised that the first bird I saw was a Scaup as the bird I found on 3 Nov has not been reported since the 8^th. This bird looked to be a 1cy male (a grey feather on the back and hint of green on the head) whereas the previous bird whilst being a 1cy had nothing in its plumage to suggest it was a male but upon looking at pictures I believe it is the same bird but that just come further in its post juvenile moult over the course of a week.

I had been hoping for ice as I hoped this would have concentrated what ever birds were left (and also any new arrivals) but that should come some time next week as temperatures are still forecast to get colder. This will hopefully also push out some snipe which I was unable to find today.

 

Yesterday I enjoyed close views of Red-throated Diver and a feeding Eider at Fornebu. The diver was showing unusually well and was in the same area on Sunday. Rather than being ill I think it is exploiting a food source. The Eider had caught a crab and I was able to watch it remove the legs by holding one leg at a time and shaking the crab until the leg was detached and the body fell into the water. This was done with each leg until there was just the body left which was swallowed after some careful manoeuvring to allow it to slide down. It impressive to think of the stomach acids it must have that will allow it process the crab.

the female Eider (ærfugl) preparing a crab for lunch

the video shows it removing the remaining legs and then eventually swallowing the body

a confiding 1st winter juvenile/1st winter Red-throated Diver (smålom)

a Razorbill (alke) getting ready to dive

and the RtD with a Guillemot (lomvi) when the diver looks surprisingly small

a young Scaup (bergand). The dark green colours coming through on the head plus a grey feather on the mantle show it to be a male

And a video of the Treecreeper in Maridalen that likes searching for food on/in spruce cones

and a comparison of the Maridalen Marsh Tit (løvmeis) and a Willow Tit (granmeis) in sunlight. Notice how the Marsh Tit seems to have a very pale wing panel... a feature that is commonly said to mean Willow

A sea gaze with a result of sorts

Yesterday it blew again from the south so I gave sea gazing a go again. Two young Little Gulls battling into the wind were my reward which I must admit was better than I had hoped for but otherwise there were no birds that seemed to have been blown in. I watched from Torkildstranda by Drøbak which allowed me to sit warm and dry (it was bucketing it down at times) in the car and may become my new go to sea gazing spot. In the video you will see the bird flying past a couple of windsurfers. When it blows around Oslo and you decide to sea faze you can almost guarantee that you will also see wind surfers but very few other people. Birds and wind surfers must be the only people who scour weather forecasts looking for storms.

the first 1cy Little Gull (dvergmåke)

the second

and my sea gazing position

The Pygmy Owl in Maridalen showed in the rain as it tried to shelter by the trunk of a tree. It was really wet and looked very unhappy with one eye open and the other closed.

the damp Pygmy Owl (spurveugle) here using the flash which highlights how wet its head is

very bedraggled

Three videos - the first is a long edit of it in the rain and the other two short clips showing specific beahviour

The Marsh Tit continues to show well and continues to do very little to give itself away. A hybrid was documented genetically (a world first!) on the other side of Oslo from 2020 - 2023 and I guess this bird could possibly also be a hybrid (based purely on it giving the species specific call so infrequently) but I see nothing in the plumage to suggest so. Marsh Tit is declining all around Oslo so the chance of hydridisation will probably increase if lone birds do not find a mate. In my previous post I wrote that the closest population to Oslo was in Lørenskog but no birds have actually been reported from here since 2018 illustrating the decline of the species.

I keep attempting to take good comparison pictures of the two species and am perhaps getting slightly better at:

both the Willow Tit (granmeis) on the left and the Marsh Tit (løvmeis) are nearly in focus although it would have been nice if both were in profile

darn twig

and if you can't get them right next to each other in the view finder there is always photoshop

and the Marsh Tit on its own

From next week we are forecast to have negative temperatures and perhaps snow which will hopefully shake up things on the bird front.

Marsh Tit in Maridalen

A single Marsh Tit has now proven to be very settled in Maridalen. It hangs very closely with two Willow Tits on a couple of horse fields where they feed primarily on the floor and find food in or close to piles of manure. What they are eating though I am unsure – it could either be seeds or insects (perhaps eggs). There is only a single Marsh Tit and I have now changed my previous observation from a pair to just one as I was only focused on identify and documenting one of the birds and just assumed that the bird it was with was also a Marsh Tit but seeing how close company this bird keeps with Willow Tits that assumption was only making an ass out of you and me. I also wonder whether the initial observation of two birds can stand as two as it was initially reported as an unsure record with a photo of just a single bird.

Anyways, this bird seems settled for the winter and there is clearly an abundance of natural food although once winter sets in then I expect it will move to feeders. It calls surprisingly little, or at least gives the characteristic “pitchoo” call very sparingly whereas the Willow Tits are churring away all the time. This makes initially discovering it difficult but once the Willows are found then the Marsh Tit should not be far away.

Apart from this little bit of excitement Maridalen feels quite dead. There are no flocks of finches on the fields and the lake only has a handful of expected species (Goldeneye, Goosander and Cormorant). With it being so mild there are still quite a few Fieldfares finding worms to eat on grass fields but I am clutching at straws.

The Maridalen Marsh Tit (løvmeis) anno 2025

finding some food in the horse muck

I'm not sure if it has taken a seed or an insect egg

here the Marsh Tit is feeding with a Willow Tit (granmeis) which is at the back. Note the much white and large cheek of the Willow

this had the makings of a very good comparison of the 2 species but ended up being blurry. The Marsh is closest

here the Marsh is at the back. Note also the large white wing panel of the Willow which is muck less obvious on the Marsh

Willow

the Marsh

Marsh on manure

Willow to the left and Marsh to the right

Marsh flanked by the two Willows. In this shot the Marsh seems to have an obvious white wing panel

Willow

Willow

Willow

2 of 5 Twite (bergirisk) that stopped briefly whilst I was watching the tits

this Treecreeper (trekryper) was searching for food on spruce cones which is a behaviour I cannot remember seeing before

These 5 Bullfinches were part of an all male flock of 6 birds - again something I cannot remember seeing before

To tick or not to tick, that is the question

In my previous post I wrote about my unsuccesful attempt to see a Pallid Swift on Friday whilst stood at Fornebu and the bird was at Nesoddtangen a mere 3.5km away over the fjord. I did not see the bird, but saw the birders who has seen it, and therefore did not need to consider the question as to whether I could add the bird to my Norwegian list which I was actually quite happy about.

On Saturday morning though as I ate breakfast a message came through that the bird was back at the same spot where it had been seen the day before. Even though Nesoddtangen is only 12km from my kitchen table as the swift flies it is a 53km drive which with windy roads would take at least 55 minutes. Another option is to take the ferry from downtown Oslo which if you time everything perfectly would be a quicker option but can easily take even longer door to door if you have to wait for the ferry. As I had committed to take Jr Jr out driving I decided that a trip to Nesoddtangen was off the cards but how about a repeat of Friday’s attempt from Fornebu which is only a 10 minute drive away? It was worth a try.

 After a bit of searching which didn’t reveal the bird I suddenly picked out two birders who by the synchronised movements of their cameras were watching the bird flying low amongst some houses and every now again I could clearly see a dark small bird zooming past a white house! I had clearly seen the bird but could I really say I knew what I was watching and tick it? I decided to see if I could digitally document my observation and yes it is possible to document a one pixel wide dot at 3.5km range but the documentation does not help in convincing anyone that it is really a Pallid Swift or even a swift for that matter.

It was nice to look at the pictures that were taken by thepeople I could see watching the dark dot and also some super pictures taken later in the day but they were documenting a level of detail that I had not seen.

I hoped that I could avoid making a decision by taking the ferry over to Nesoddtangen on Sunday morning and joined a few other birders who were also late to the party but the bird had done a bunk (or perhaps perished overnight).

So what to do? I had undoubtedly seen the bird but were the views “tickable”? The temptation to add the bird to my Norwegian and Akershus list was very high (I have seen the bird further south in Europe so it is not a lifer) but I have previously not been backward in expressing my views when others have “ticked” birds based on equally bad views and as I seem to be so concerned with ethics in birding then of course I knew (not so) deep down that I could not add the bird to my official lists no matter how much I wanted to and how easy it would have been to do so.

I’ll have to find one of my own some time although as there have only been about 40 observations in Norway it ain’t an easy species to find.

This still from the video below shows all of the necessary field characters to allow one to safely NOT add the species to your Norwegian list. The bird is so easy to see that the red ring I have added is hardly needed..... Note the two birders who seemed to be having great views and were much easier to see at 3.5km range 

Aker Brygge at 0809 on a chilly Sunday morning as I made my way to the Nesoddtangen ferry

a new view for me as I look from Nesoddtangen towards Oslo. I have looked the opposite way countless times