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
Jr and I have fled the heatwave Oslo is experiencing and have left temperatures in the mid thirties and replaced them with the low tens. This has resulted in two days and 1300km of driving to our cabin near Bodø. The weather should improve whilst we are here but I am writing this sitting next to a radiator on full…
As usual I kept a count of raptors on the drive up and it was a meagre total with just 3 Kestrels, 2 Peregrines, 1 Merlin, 1 Rough-legged Buzzard and 2 White-tailed Eagles meaning about 1 raptor per 150km….
Three well planned Beast walking stops did result in some action for me. A stop in 30C heat gave me an Apollo butterfly which even briefly landed on my head although the battery on my camera proved to be flat so I had to resort to photos with my phone. In this photo you can see me taking a photo of the Apollo.
Jr is the shade whilst I am enjoying this Apollo:
Just before we got to the Arctic Circle a stop in Mo i Rana gave me to two additions to my Nordland county list - Jackdaw (kaie) and Nutcracker (nøttekråke). I have tried for them here before with no joy but finally succeeded. Both seem to have an isolated northerly breeding outpost here and the Nutcrackers are of the siberian subspecies so are different to the birds around Oslo.
Adult and juvenile Nutcracker (nøttekråke) of the race macrorhynchos
Here the parent has extracted a seed from a cone to give to junior
A stop at Saltfjellet on the Arctic Circle was very successful with Long-tailed Skua and Red-necked Phalarope. The skua was actively hunting at very close range but I am unsure as to what it was searching for as a lack of any raptors suggests no rodents.
Long-tailed Skua (fjelljo)
Red-necked Phalarope (svømmesnipe) male who by his behaviour must have had young nearby
The last week of January has been quite like the preceding
three, i.e uninspiring, with the exception of reacquainting myself with my Hazel
Grouse. We can now look forward to February with hopefully some cloudless,
freezing cold, nocturnal trips interrupted only by the sound of trees cracking
in the cold, owls of various sightings hooting and northern lights flickering
overhead. By the end of the month the very first spring migrants will also with
luck have arrived and then we can really look forward to the spring and all the
bounties it brings.
I have had a few walks in the forest but it is incredibly
quiet there with, other than the HG, hardly a bird to see or hear. There are
ZERO finches in the forest and even in more suburban areas with feeders there are
hardly any so a flock of 18 Hawfinches that I came across at Østensjøvannet one
day was quite a surprise.
A noisy Nutcracker (nøttekråke) was one of only a handfull of birds seen on my forest walks but it is always a good bird to see.
the Pygmy Owl (spurveugle) has become harder to see again and when it does give itself up it is usually high up as here with a Magpie (skjære)
Mallards (stokkand) at Østensjøvannet
where this female Teal (krikkand) is still hanging around
and where with some patience Water Rails (vannrike) can be seen
an unusually large flock of Hawfinch (kjernebiter)
Woodpeckers are not really making themselves known yet although I have heard a drumming Great Spotted and this female Black Woodpecker was making a lot of noise hacking away at a dead tree trunk
During the Bird Race on Saturday we had a strange black & white
duck. First seen asleep with Mallards we hoped it was a Shelduck which we
needed for our list but when it eventually showed more of itself it clearly
wasn’t. We dismissed it as a domestic duck type although when we saw it again
on Monday I began to think that a hybrid Mallard x Common Eider was more likely
and took some footage. There are not many people who share my interest in
hybrid ducks and I don’t think anyone else has spent any time on it (I also suspect
it has been around a while).
A hybrid between Mallard and Common Eider sounds an unlikely
combination and indeed it is with only one report of a possible female fromNorway (although I would say that bird is another hybrid combo) and just a few documented birds to find on the web although a male at
Seahouses, Northumberland is well known.
Based on my photos I feel confident the bird is indeed this
hybrid combo with body shape, head and bill shape matching other reported birds.
not a great photo but I am confident this is a male hybrid between Common Eider (ærfugl) and Mallard (stokkand). The jizz of the bird especially head shape and the rear end short wings are closer to Eider than Mallard and match photos on eBird. The bill pattern with a black nail also matches other birds as do the light grey tertials (visible in the video). Plumage varies greatly between hybrids but this birds plumage also looks good for a mix between the two species even though it does not match other birds. It would have been nice to document it in flight and also out of the water.
The Pallid Harrier we had was seen migrating past the
lighthouse, first flying NE and later migrating out to the SSW. It was scope
views only and wasn’t photographed but a hunting Hen Harrier was and this of
course led to some confusion and suspicion…. Two Bird Theories are always good
but as the Hen Harrier was seen again after the Pallid disappeared out to sea
then I think it was a Two Bird Fact 😇. I managed some photos
of the Hen.
Hen Harrier (myrhauk) - a 1st year male if I am not mistaken
Back home I have looked for the Taiga Beans a couple of
times. On Tuesday I found only 72 on a different field to previously (but again
one that has been used in previous years) but on Wednesday found none so
perhaps they have moved on already after only two weeks but if that is the case
then it will be 2-3 weeks earlier than normal.
I counted 72 Taiga Beans but despite the field looking flat they were difficult to count and birds could disappear so there may have been more but definitely not 129
Water levels in Svellet are still low with lots of mud and
shallow water and many thousands of ducks and geese. There were very few waders
today but two Marsh Harriers and a White-tailed Eagle may have been responsible
for that. A single juvenile Little Gull, 2 Arctic and 2 Common Terns were nice
but I always feel there should be far more terns here.
this male Kingfisher (isfugl) was a nice surprise along the Glomma River
this colour ringed Common Sandpiper (strandsnipe) would appear to have been ringed in Norway as the combination of yellow flag on left leg and red ring on right is a Norwegian thing. Finding out more details though is proving hard work though... We also saw a Greenshank with the same red and yellow ring combo but were unable to read the code
we came a bit late to the lunar eclipse and missed the blood moon
part of a flock of 19 Nutcrackers (nøttekråke) that headed out to sea
some also landed in the bushes by the lighthouse. I am unsure whether they were of the slender-billed siberian subspecies or the resident thicker billed subspecies that we have around Oslo
distant Red Kite b(rødglente) being pursued by Hooded Crows (kråke)
we had a few Stonechats (svartstrupe) and the species has bred at Lista this year.
One of the main birding events around Oslo is the gatherings of migrating waders and waterfowl in Nordre Øyeren especially at Årnestangen and Svellet. I have not given this much attention so far this autumn and have missed the best bits which are normally at the end of July when thunderstorms can bring down a vast selection of adult waders. Now in late August the species variety is significantly less and almost all birds are young birds. On Wednesday I joined up with Jules Bell for a trip to Årnestangen and Svellet and yesterday I visited Svellet and Merkja. The most numerous wader was Ruff with around 250 birds in total and more unusual birds were Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew Sand and Little and Temminck’s Stints.
In Maridalen I have continued looking for raptors and especially Honey Buzzards but despite what I would describe as perfect condition there has been very little to see although the HBs will get their own post later. A young Peregrine has been a regular sight though terrorizing a group of Feral Pigeons that frequent one of the farms and amongst the few Common Buzzards is a particularly pale bird.
Svellet has been Made Great Again and alongside lots of Ruff (brushane) are a couple of Black-tailed Godwits (svarthalespove)
on the neighbouring Merkja two male Gadwall (snadderand) in eclipse
Goosander (laksand) in Maridalen. A female (middle) has managed to raise 8 young which is incredibly gowing considering that the many Goldeneye (kvinand) broods typically and quite quickly decline to one or two, or none
here male (who has had nothing to do with the family before now), a 1cy and mum
a 1cy Peregrine (vandrefalk) has been regular in Maridalen and likes to have a go at a small flock of Feral Pigeons (bydue) that hang around one of the farms
this pale Common Buzzard (musvåk) has also been a regular sighting
I have seen evidence of a Nutcracker in the garden with discarded leaves and nuts from our Hazel Trees on the lawn and today I saw the culprit from the kitchen window:
