No new reunions this time although I have strengthened my acquaintance with the subjects of my last two posts.
The Med Gull has clearly hung around and was seen at Østensjøvannet on Thursday before disappearing again. A family walk around the lake on Sunday revealed it was back but it was gone again on Monday. It was together with Common Gulls and was feeding together with them on football pitches looking for worms rather than the bread eating Black-headeds. There are plenty of places in Oslo that attract Common Gulls searching for worms but that will change once temperatures fall below zero. If the Med Gull decides to stay the winter then it will probably out of necessity become a gluten lover.
the picture I had hoped to take last week - 1st winter Med, Common and Black-headed Gulls together
Med and Common Gull
looking for worms
Talking of temperatures below zero the first snow fell on the hills around Oslo at the weekend although it has turned warmer again now.
no snow in this photo of a very autumnal Maridalen yesterday
I have now found two Pygmy Owls in Maridalen with both still in the forest and there has been a bird in another place so currently three birds is a good start to the winter season. Two more sightings of Great Grey Owls close to Oslo also give me hope for an owl winter. One was hunting from wires along a busy road in farmland which is a sure sign of how bad the rodent situation is in the forests. I had a nocturnal session in Maridalen last night with high hopes for a Tengmalms or two but it disappointed with only a single Tawny and surprisingly no noise at dusk from either of the Pygmys I had seen earlier in the day.
Pygmy Owl (spurveugle)
No sooner than the photographers filled up the feeders for the winter season and Marsh Tits are back in Maridalen although I am sure they never left and will most likely have bred unnoticed. No Waxwings yet but there are still lots of Rowan berries and plenty of time for both them and Grosbeaks to come.
Yesterday saw me watching some big owls very well in Hedmark
and I will come back to them in a day or so but first an update from a good
days birding in Oslo.
Every spring the car needs its service and I use this carless
day to go out to the islands and today was that day. I only visited Gressholmen
but it was a good trip even though it is still way too early for anything that
exciting. However 3 Slavonian Grebes at close range were, as always, a treat
and they even displayed a bit. These, a Green Sandpiper and a Great Grey Shrike
which even sang a bit were all Oslo’s first records of the year..
After this a trip to Middelalderparken failed to reveal anything
rare among the few hundred gulls bathing there (although turnover is clearly
high so things can always turn up). A very pale mantled Lesser Black-back and a
yellow-legged and slightly dark mantled Herring Gull got some attention. I also
managed to fit in a trip to Østensjøvannet before the car was ready to be
picked up and thankfully didn’t need any additional work doing to it.
Slavonian Grebe (horndykker) pair
This video has lots of display and interaction between the birds
And this short extract shows some interesting display with what seems to be the unpaired bird trying its luck before being chased off. Note how it dives under water and then starts penguin displaying which gets a positive response from the other bird before its mate turns up
look at the reflection of the black head feathers
all 3 birds which were a pair and I believe a male
the pair of Smew (lappfiskand) still at Østensjøvannet
the yellow-legged Herring Gull that isn't a Yellow-legged Gull...
this pale backed Lesser-black Backed Gull (sildemåke) is ringed and its life history and other pictures suggest is an intermedius with some pigment problems (note that the primaries are not black) rather than a graellsii
Great Grey Shrike (varlser). It was intently staring at the ground in an area with lots of Water Vole holes but I did not see it catch one which would also have been a large prey item
I only discovered this Greylag Goose nest when it hissed at me as I almost stood on it
this young Herring Gull looks to have got some paint on it
there were 6 Ringed Plovers (sandlo) on Gressholmen which probably represent the entire Oslo breeding population
And a video of a drumming female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker from earlier in the week
As I write this it is just +1C and snowing outside the window.
This is in stark contrast to England where Jr and I spent a loooong weekend
looking at flowering daffodils, bluebells, wood anemones, Firecrests and Red
Kites. Firecrests have now become ten a penny in my childhood birding haunts
where I definitely did not see a single one (40 years ago….) when I was a young
birder and Red Kites now cruise over urban areas looking for a snack. In
contrast to these species that have become much commoner I also heard a Lesser
Spotted Woodpecker which would appear to be the first eBird record for West
Sussex this year. It was a rare species when I was a lad but has clearly become
even rarer in the (may) intervening years.
Before we went to England Maridalsvannet was still frozen and
Østensjøvannet still half so. Now Maridalsvannet and, I presume, ØV are ice free
but surprisingly Sognsvann proved to still be covered in ice on a walk with The
Beast today. We are still waiting for the big arrival of thrushes but lots of Chaffinches
have arrived although we are still waiting for the big arrival of Bramblings.
Yesterday was a good day for Pink-footed Geese with 3000 or so passing over Maridalen
in just an hour of observation but there did not seem to be anything else
moving. Maybe I will still get big raptor da
Mute Swan (knoppsvane) pair on Maridalsvannet. I have not seen them getting any grief from the Whooper Swans so may be there will be far less swan drama this year although I still think the lake is a very suboptimal locality for them. Both birds had colour rings although I was unable to read them
Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) heading north over Jr in Maridalen yesterday
a lone Pink-foot with Greylags by a frozen Sognsvann today
a large flock of Pink-feet over Nes in Maridalen
a pair of Smew (lappfiskand) at Østensjøvannet before we went to England. It has now become an expected event that the species will turn up as soon as the ice starts melting there
another species that has appeared in Sussex since I left is Egyptian Goose (niland) which still breeds during the southern summer, i.e our winter
Goshawk (hønsehauk) nest at Sognsvann today. This pair must surely be the most accepting of humans in the whole of Norway
The hot sunny weather continues often with northerly winds
and cold nighttime temperatures. This sort of weather means no falls or mass
arrivals of birds and numbers and variety at Svellet suggests few birds are
arriving or leaving at the moment. Some birds do of course arrive though and a
trip out to the tip of Årnestangen on Tuesday resulted in me hearing a
Citrine Wagtail. Despite my best efforts I could not find the bird but
hopefully it will be last years bird returning and will therefore be refound soon
holding territory. There are a few Yellow Wagtails back but none are singing
yet and the very dry conditions and cold nights are probably not favourable for
them or any other insect eating species.
A Great Snipe that flew up from long grass was also a good
bird and a nesting pair of Long-tailed Tits are something to marvel over. I encounter
a Kingfisher every visit, normally just hearing him or glimpsing him flying
away from me up the river. The only time I have seen the bird well it was a
male but I do not know whether it is the same bird I see each time. I assume
though that there is breeding nearby of a species that has definitely benefited
from a series of warmer, shorter winters.
Svellet continues to hold the same species and same numbers
every day with the Little Gulls remaining although there is probably quite a turn over of birds. There are still no calidris waders
but they will turn up any day soon and then the real fun starts.
In Maridalen one of the Lapwing nests survived the plough
which I suppose is good news but it is of course tragic that despite the
farmers good intentions that the other nests did not survive the plough.
this Long-tailed Tit (stjertmeis) with a mouth full of insects led to me a nest. I do not think they have young yet but rather it was food for the mate who was incubating
the nest is a remarkable construction
incubating bird. Note how the tail is sticking up through a hole in the nest. This reminds me of one of my earliest ornithological observations and which led to a letter in British Birds (for a teenager this was big!) when I found a nest building LtTits and one of the birds had woven its own tail into the nest construction and was stuck.
taken with the mobile. The nest is large
male Kingfisher (isfugl)
he is often hidden away in bushes away from the water where he calls occasionally but there is no suitable mud banks for a nest site here so I do not understand why he chooses to be there
a stick marking a Lapwing (vipe) nest but the plough went far too close. The pair were hanging out close to their old nest looking a bit forlorn
this nest survived though
a female was in the grass and both her and her mate chased away gulls that came to close. It is possible that they have young (from the first nest I saw) that hatched before the plough. I first noticed a bird sitting on 8 April and with an incubation period of 28 days it is therefore possible that the young have hatched - hopefully i will see some soon
my first Garden Warbler (hagesanger) of the year
and my first Thrush Nightingale (nattergal)
Black-throated Diver (storlom) with a crayfish in Maridalen.
Osprey (fiskeørn)
this male Smew (lappfiskand) that is in love with a female Goldeneye (kvinand) was on the oxbow lake at the duck hot spot of Stilla. This is surely the same bird that has summered to north east of Oslo since 2019 and was at Østensjøvannet last spring and turns up at different lakes depending on where his chosen Goldeneye choose to go. Here he is in 2020
yet another singing Wryneck (vendehals) in Maridalen
water levels in Svellet continue to be perfect. Let us hope that we have no big rises in water levels but rather slow increases
