A week in Beitostølen and the nearby mountains has been a nice family holiday but very uneventful on both the bird and butterfly front. Chilly weather with only occasional sun which was nearly always accompanied by lots of wind did it for the butterflies and the complete lack of rodents (vole and lemmings) meant no food for raptors and a single Kestrel was the only one I saw!
I made an effort to see butterflies whenever the sun shone but numbers were generally low and a few species that I would normally see such as Mountain Fritillary (fjellperlemorvinge) and Silver-spotted Skipper (kommasmyger) were absent which I believe is just a timing issue and a visit in a couple of weeks would hopefully see them flying. I did see a single male Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge) though and as this is my favourite species and one I barely see annually I have to be happy with that.
I did not make an attempt to see lekking Great Snipe and 2026 with a combination of either bad weather or watching the footie on the TV being my excuses.
Male Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge)
Moorland Clouded Yellow (myrgulvinge)
And my only digital bird memories and these two short videos:
The arrival of spring has not been as explosive as I dreamed
and those birds with names beginning with S are only slowly appearing in my binoculars.
I can add another two species to the list of four I have already mentioned in
the form of Stonechat and Shelduck but am struggling to come up with a seventh
to make it S Club 7. Of the six I have now seen only three though.
Shelduck was just an oversight when I listed the first
migrants but Stonechat was an omission based on it being such a rarity but
times are a changing. In Oslo and Bærum (which I include because of Fornebu) this
weekend four!! Stonechat were present with two in Oslo and another two on Fornebu.
They came in cold, snowy conditions when an insect eater should really struggle
to find food but then again they are not an extremely early migrant for nothing
and clearly know how to find food in these conditions. I failed to find my own
chat at the weekend and also failed in attempts to twitch one after being shown
very juicy photos that a photographer had taken and which he was unsure as to the
identity of. But yesterday morning I caught up with a female found on Sunday at
Fornebu which I had really expected to have moved on overnight as it was a
clear night. It showed well as fresh snow fell and often dropped to the ground
clearly having seen a food item but I did not see it actually eat anything.
The first spring record of Stonechat in Oslo and Bærum was
in 1977 but it was then another 21 years before the next in 1998 and in the
next 22 years there were just records in six years. From 2021 though the
species has been annual and records are also occurring earlier than before.
Four in a year in both 2021 and 2024 is the record so having already reached
that number this year when we can get birds until the middle of April is
clearly something special. Exactly where these birds are migrating to remains and
what subspecies are involved remains a bit of a mystery. The small breeding
population on the west coast of Norway are described as hibernans and
are very early migrants whereas the subspecies that breeds further south in Europe
and that is advancing north in Sweden is rubicola which migrates later.
Birds this early in the spring would could be expected to be hibernans
but I am not aware of any increase or change in distribution of their
population to explain the explosion of records in recent years. If they are rubicola
are they just birds overshooting their new breeding areas in southern Sweden?
And if so why aren’t they establishing themselves as breeders in Norway and why
are they arriving so early?
And the third S Club species I have seen in addition to
Stock Dove and Stonechat? Starling, with a flock of 9 looked a bit forlorn in a
treetop on Bygdøy.
female Stonechat (Svartstrupe)
proof of where it was
here it had flown down onto the snow having seen a food item
I may have found no spring migrants yet in Maridalen but I again saw two different Pygmy Owls on Sunday with this one being at a site where I also had sightings in the late autumn and being the fourth different bird I have seen the last few weeks. It also sang as can be heard in the video
Three Long-tailed Ducks at Fornebu:
And Purple Sandpipers at Huk, Bygdøy taken with the phone:
Our first mid winter trip to Tromsø has been a resounding success. We arrived at the end of Sami Week, an annual celebration of all things Sami, and got to see the Norwegian Championships in both lasso throwing and Reindeer racing. The reindeer racing happened on a snow lined downtown street on a 201m course. It was explained that 201m is the internationally defined distance for the sport but no explanation was given for why. A skier holds on to the reins whilst the animal runs and covers the distance in around 17 seconds. It all looked great fun although the animals didn’t exactly look thrilled whilst being harnessed up. Animal welfare was not mentioned once..
The Northern Lights also put on a show and this is one of the main reasons the City has become such a popular winter tourist destination and the streets were heaving with winter clothed tourists from ever corner of the globe. This tourism results in hotel prices going through the roof and rented accommodation being used for Air BnB rather than for locals or students who need it and is causing quite a lot of resentment among many natives.
I put on a «show» for the 100 or so students in Junior’s 8 storey high student block when whilst making food I slightly burnt some mince causing the smoke alarm to go off and the whole building to be evacuated. The fire brigade arrived within 10 minutes and were very good about it - I even think they were grateful to me for being given something to do on an otherwise boring Sunday evening ☺️
But what about the birds I hear you say. Well, they were tip top super. King Eiders and an adult Iceland Gull topped the bill and all seen whilst walking from Junior’s into town. Passerines are of course going to be in short supply in winter this far north but an abundance of rowan berries resulted in small flocks of Waxwing and and most surprisingly a Redwing which would be an exceptional mid winter sight even in Oslo.
The trusted superzoom and mobile phone resulted in the following documentation of the delights of Tromsø (this is done at the airport and I may come with some better edited photos later):
King Eider (praktærfugl) pair
Adult Iceland Gull (grønnlandsmåke)
Fieldfare (gråtrost)
Redwing (rødvingetrost)
I saw no divers in the field but this Yellow-billed was in Tromsø Museum
Where I also had my best ever «views» of a Gyr Falcon (Jaktfalk)
According to accepted Norwegian birding wisdom Shags (toppskarv) never perch like this…
Purple Sandpiper (fjæreplytt)
Herons have been roosting in the heronry trees by Junior’s flat all winter and they were present and noisy when we were there
The weather is now far more autumnal than wintery with
temperatures up to 8C in the day and no overnight frosts. On Sunday snow gave
way to rain and it’s all quite gloomy and grey.
Fieldfares are around in enormous numbers with up to 2000
stripping rowan trees and also feeding again on the fields. Amongst them have
been at least 20 Redwing, 2 Starling and an exceptionally late Mistle Thrush. The
Mistle Thrush is actually the latest ever recorded in Oslo as was a Meadow
Pipit today which really show how mild it is at the moment. There are also very
good numbers of Goldfinch (>250), Brambling (>110) and Yellowhammer
(>120) so it is all very birdy.
A trip to Huk in fresh southerly winds yesterday revealed no
sea birds but three Long-tailed Ducks were without doubt in Oslo waters 😊
Pine Grosbeaks continue to entertain and I have had up to 47
in a day in. Hawkie continues to entertain the masses although in the poor
weather we are having now it is in fact to possible to have him all to myself.
I witnessed him fly into an overhead cable yesterday as he powered down from a
tree top towards something on the ground about 30m away. He seemed unharmed but
it goes to show how focused he was on a possible prey item that the unnatural
obstacle that the wire is did not register with him.
Oslo's latest ever Meadow Pipit (heipiplerke)
and Oslo's latest ever Mistle Thrush (duetrost)
Goldfinches (stillits) are still around in exceptional numbers
and there are still lots of Redwing (rødvingetrost)
and Brambling (bjørkefink)
and thousands of Fieldfare (gråtrost) which strip rowan trees of their berries in just minutes
photographic evidence that I have seen Long-tailed Duck (havelle) in Oslo waters
there is very little to see on Maridalsvannet at the moment except for a handfull of Goldeneye (kvinand) and this Common Scoter (Svartand)
a shaky video of a Cormorant (storskarv) swallowing a Perch (abbor) on Maridalsvannet
filming Hawkie
here reacting to a Sparrowhawk (spurvehauk) that landed closeby
and this is how he reacts to a Goshawk (hønsehauk) flying by
on Saturday morning when it was still crisp and wintery
Magpies (skjære) giving him a hard time
a video of Pine Grosbeaks taken on my phone at a couple of metres range today
this male was a noticeably more scarlet rather than claret colour red
