Ever since my first autumn trip to Værøy in 2012 the sound of and then sight of Yellow-browed Warbler has been an essential and longed for part of my birding year.
Even the years when I wasn’t able to visit Værøy I have managed to see and hear the species until last year when I drew a blank. I assumed that my planned visit to Værøy in a weeks time would remedy that this year but yesterday I had a far, far, better blank buster.
I have had the “tsuit” call of YbW on my mind for the last two weeks and have had my ears peeled in the never ending hope of actually hearing one. Finally I was no longer hearing it inside my head - the sound was real and coming in through my ears. AND I was in Maridalen where the species has never been recorded before AND there was not one but two birds calling AND there was even some (sub)song AND I saw at least one of them well AND I got photos.
Værøy will have to produce something a Cosmic Mind F*cker (as the late, great Bill Oddie termed it) to beat a YbW IN THE DALE!!!
This was my third YwB in Oslo but was a new species for Maridalen taking the Maridalen list to 229 species of which I have now seen 214.
This video has the call, of one and then two birds and the subsong can also be heard
photographing it with the superzoom high up in the trees was nearly a challenge beyond my abilities but eventually some record, and even slightly artistic shots were bagged
Yellow-browed Warbler (gulbrynsanger) record shot
do you spot it?
one of three Black-throated Divers (storlom) on the lake. This was the only one that had started moulting
I have previously written that Hazel Grouse are a challenge to find this year. After having my last meeting with my previously reliable male (and his normally far shyer mate) in February I have really struggled to find birds despite checking many territories that have been occupied in last 20 years or so. It does seem to me and others who know the species that it has become genuinely far scarcer in Oslo’s forests and quite abruptly. Why this should be is unclear. There has been extensive forestry work in some areas which have changed some territories but there are also empty territories in nature reserves where everything looks the same as it always has.
It was therefore a big relief to find two birds in the same small area yesterday. Both sang and almost in duett with one song being notably louder and clearer than the other. I only got to see the louder bird well and this a nicely marked male with a clearly visible red skin patch above the eyes. As I did not see the other bird well I was unsure as to whether I was hearing two males or a male and female and also whether one of them could be my previously faithful male (we were only a kilometre from his old territory which now seems empty). Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP) tells me though that females do not sing like males and it also tells me that each males song is different.
This video has the sound of both birds singing and sometimes on top of each other. It also features the Beast and as I have previously written I think having dog in tow does help find Hazel Grouse as they seem to show curiosity towards the animal:
I have previously noted that Hazel Grouse song varies but had never thought too much about it and hadn't worked out that the variation is between males and not within how each male sings. When I listen to my own recordings I can hear that Old Faithful sounds the same on each recording I have taken between 2021 and 2026 whereas other males sound slightly different. Neither of these males songs is the same as Old Faithful which can be heard here this February and here back in 2021 the year I found him and his song can be heard to be the same 5 years apart. (I think I need to go through all the videos I have with singing birds to see if I can identify the same individuals over time from other territories I have visited over the years)
Hazel Grouse are normally to be found in male-female pairs so finding two males together is odd but autumn is when pairs are formed and there may well have been a female nearby that they were trying to impress or they could have been competing over territory. That one bird had a clearer and louder song than the other suggests to me that bird with a weaker song may have been a bird of the year who was only just starting to sing.
Here is a video of the stronger singing male (but not of him singing) and then some photos of him.
male Hazel Grouse (jerpe)
it was dark in the forest and the superzoom was pushed to its limits
This weekend my phone has been pinging with messages of rare birds either on Værøy or in Oslo. These would normally be the two places where I would find myself in the middle of September but this weekend has seen my on a cabin trip in the mountains with non-birding mates.
Q: What did I see?
A: Siberian Jay and little else
Q: What did I not see?
A: in Oslo a not particularly strong southerly wind pushed in Manx Shearwater, Arctic Skua and Fulmars all of which are great species on the fjord.
On Værøy they’ve been wading through Yellow-browed Warblers and for spice have had Red-flanked Bluetail, Citrine Wag, Barred Warbler, Turtle Dove and the island’s first Nutcracker. Nothing mega but enough to make most birders very happy.
It is Moose mating season and this male was grunting and following a female
Most, but definitely not all, winters see the arrival of a
scarce irruptive species (or two or three) in the Oslo area. The classic
species are Pine Grosbeak, Two-barred Crossbill, Hawk Owl and new to the list Great
Grey Owl.
We currently have a good berry crop especially on planted
asal trees in urban areas such that we can hope that if Grozzas do irrupt this
autumn then we at least have food for them.
berry laded trees on this morning's dog walk. I can never remember quite so many berries on these exact trees
We had none last winter but proper invasion
winters in 2024/5, 2021/2022, 2019/2020, small numbers 2017/2018 and 2016/2017
and good numbers in 2012/2013 when there were no berries but they fed on fresh
shoots in spruce trees. Two-barred
Crossbill is far less regular but we had good numbers in the winter of
2019/2020 which was a good crossbill winter in general due to a lots of cones
but should they also arrive when there are not cones then they may find other
food such as in the winters of 2014/15 and 2013/2014 when small flocks fed on some
ornamental seed stones in the Oslo Botanical Gardens.
Owls irrupt following good breeding seasons which means
there are a lot of owls and then a collapse in rodent populations means little
food and causes the owls to spread out looking for places where there is food.
Hawk Owl has long been a species that can turn up around Oslo and does so pretty
much every 4 years with a bird two winters ago in Maridalen and multiple birds in
the winters of 2020/21 and also 2019/20, 2016/2017 and 2012/13. It is
therefore not to be expected that we have a bird this winter but of course not
impossible. Great Grey Owl is so new as a breeding species in southern
Scandinavia that we have no history with which to make predictions and it is
only the winter of 2019/20 that we have previously had the pleasure of their
company in Oslo. However, it is clear that they irrupt in the same way as Hawk
Owl with good breeding seasons followed by rodent population crashes causing them
to wander.
Great Grey Owls had a very good breeding season in their
core area last year which I was able to enjoy but less successful this year as
rodent numbers had already started to decline. Rodent should now be hitting the
bottom of their 3 to 4 year cycle meaning there are good numbers of owls
needing to find food. There have already been reports from the coast suggesting
birds are on the move so my hope has, for quite a while, been that this winter
will again host GGO in Oslo. We also have lots of new clearings due to
extensive forestry work and these provide ample (perhaps too ample for the
birder wishing to find one) hunting grounds for the owls. The only remaining
blocks that have to fall in place are for there to be enough rodents around
Oslo to sustain an owl or two during the winter and for the owls to find them
and decide to stay.
There have been no signs that this summer has been good for
rodents with Tawny Owls being unusually hard to hear in Maridalen but intriguingly
there have been a small handful of reports of Great Grey Owl from the Maridalen
and Lillomarka area since last November. Some of these were third or fourth hand
reports that were difficult to know what to make of but there have been some
photographed birds. I am certain that there has not been breeding but rather
wandering young bird(s) from last summer’s good breeding season further north
have made it to the Oslo area and are scratching a living.
A report of a bird on Sunday with photographs clearly taken
with a mobile phone of a bird hunting in the day in Lillomarka was interesting
and exciting. Was it the same bird that had been reported those handful of
times or was is a new wandering bird and the vanguard of the invasion I have
hoped for? We can of course not know for sure but developments through the late
autumn will give us a clue.
I of course went looking for it yesterday morning and for
once took the Beast with me as a long and potentially unrewarding walk in the
woods would be made more enjoyable with some company and as he now approaches late
middle age he has become a bit easier to take birding. Also, he would hopefully
be a lucky charm as his breed name Finnish Lapphund shares the same Lapp
name as Great Grey Owl in Norwegian (lappugle). A bit convoluted I know but I
will take all the help I can get.
We didn’t find it in our first check of the area where it
had been seen the day before and continued through the forest checking out
where Honey Buzzards had bred this year in a new nest but which I had not previously
visited due to my far more accessible nest in Maridalen. Coming back a couple
of hours later though there it was perched very openly on a tree stump just as
they are supposed to do. There then followed nearly three hours of observation
when I watched it make four succesful catches all of which it ate on the ground
so I could not see exactly what it caught but once did see a long tail sticking
out as it swallowed the prey. After the first three catches it resumed hunting
immediately and it was only after the fourth that it seemed sated enough to
relax and preen. It had clearly found an area with, for the moment at least,
good numbers although the fact it is hunting so much during the day in such an
open area does suggest that the bird is both very hungry and that there are not
many rodents as otherwise it would hunt within the forest as night.
It will be interesting to see how long it stays but I doubt
the one small area where it was can have enough food to sustain it for too long
so it will surely soon move on although maybe not far.
I continued my long track record of failing to press record
when I thought I had so do not have digital memories of some of the scenes I
witnessed but have managed to capture some hunt and flight sequences.
Great Grey Owl (lappugle)
much too low shutter speed but I don't think anyone would expect anything else of me :-)
well camouflaged in black and white
it very clearly has two generations of primary and secondary feathers which I interpret as meaning it is a bird born last year with a mix of juvenile and adult feathers
some pics from the phone including an obligatory selfie
The second half of the week has, unsurprisingly, not been able to measure up to the good start but it has offered some good autumn birding. A trip to Nordre Øyeren today in damp conditions revealed a Svellet completely free of waders despite there being lots of attractive (at least to me) mud still showing. There were three Great White Egrets close by though and this is now a characteristic species for the area in the autumns. Despite it now being expected it is still a bit of kick to set your eyes on them and they are still exotic.
Bird of today was a calling Red-throated Pipit (lappiplerke) that flew right over my head when I was looking over Snekkervika but it wouldn't stop unfortunately. Also still there were two Red-backed Shrikes (tornskate) which are getting to be quite late.
Great White Egrets (egretthegre) - the bird on the right is perhaps an adult with what look like plume feathers sticking out
This video shows a dark juvenile Honey Buzzard and an adult Common Buzzard in Maridalen on Wednesday and continue the great run of sightings I have had this autumn
a video grab of the dark juv HB
and a picture of the pale juv HB that isn't in the video
the dark juv HB with a moulting (adult or at least 2cy+) CB
In this video of a Black-throated Diver family on Maridalsvannet from Thursday the youngster can be seen being fed small fish
juvenile Black-throated Diver (storlom)
BtD family
Goosanders (laksand)
a record breaking flock of 32 Cormorants (storskarv) that flew into Maridalsvannet yesterday and immediately set about feeding (or at least searching for fish) as a flock as can be seen in the video
Shoveler (skjeand) including an adult male in eclipse which I don't remember having seen in Norway before and a pair of Gadwall (snadderand) at Merkja today
A Nutcracker (nøttekråke) collecting hazel nuts in the garden on Wednesday. They do not eat them but rather fill up their throats/crops and fly many kilometers into the forest with them where they hide them to be eaten during the winter. In the video you can see it taking nuts and also see the bulges in its throat
This mink in Maridalen did not seem to have seen me and The Beast sitting only meters away but as can be seen could definitely smell us
