Apple tree

An usual weekend post from me but with 10 minutes to spare between a late, lie-in induced, breakfast and taking the family to the ski slopes I checked out the apple tree. Just four Waxwings (sidensvans) this morning but the Blackcap (munk) was present and allowed me to see it feeding on apples – a fine male which dispelled any thoughts I may have had that the tacking call from yesterday actually belonged to a far rarer warbler. At 0930 on an overcast morning it is still very dark and the pictures bare evidence of this.

Whilst skiing a vole risked its life as it ran across one of the slopes – hopefully a good sign regarding owls this year.

male Blackcap (munk) - a very scarce winter visitor in Oslo

Waxwing (sidensvans) - a common winter visitor in Oslo although always a delight to see

Eagles

Today was another interesting day of combining birding and traffic safety, i.e I was with Turbo Zac for a tour of Østfold. We went right down to the Swedish border to Berby on a tongue of Norway that sticks into Sweden – there is surely a good (although most likely strange) historic explanation for this land being Norwegian. This area often has winter records of both Golden (kongeørn) and White-tailed Eagle (havørn) with the former being a particularly difficult species to see in South Eastern Norway. As soon as we arrived at 1030 after a long drive we had a young Golden Eagle riding the air currents over a nearby ridge being mobbed by a Raven. This bird soon disappeared but we had a couple of other distant sightings. Then after about half an hour three White-tailed Eagles and another Golden Eagle flew up from behind a fairly close ridge and we had five eagles in the air along with Ravens!! Quite a sight although not particularly close and my photographic efforts were nothing to write home about (or write on a blog about).

After a while a man pulled up and spoke to us. After some general chat about the eagles he revealed that he puts out carcasses for them and the birds we saw fly up had been scared by him when he went up to put out a new carcass – no wonder this area is so popular with these majestic species.

We had an additional Golden Eagle later giving us three of each. All the Goldens were young birds, woth two either in their 2^nd or 3^rd calendar year and one in its 5th and two of the White-tailed Eagles were also young without white in the tail whilst one was in nearly full adult plumage but still had some black tips to the tail. There was a good deal of interaction between all the birds with both eagle species flying together and the two young White-tails frequently tumbled together with outstretched talons.

Other sightings during the day were a single roadside Great Grey Shrike (varsler), an additional White-tailed Eagle at Krokstadfjord, a female Scaup (bergand), a couple of Little Grebes (dvergdykker) and a rare winter observation of Nutcracker (nøttekråke) – where do they all disappear to after they have eaten all the hazel nuts in the autumn?

Back at home, whilst going to pick up my youngest I discovered where yesterdays overflying Waxwings (sidensvans) were going. Just 150 m from the house 35 birds were devouring apples from a single tree that was still covered in fruit despite the late date. I of course had no camera although came so close (just a couple of metres) in the fading light that I am hopeful that an outing tomorrow morning will give good results. Most exciting though was hearing a tacking call from a Blackcap from a nearby evergreen tree. I found the bird but without bins I wasn’t able to see more than that it was a warbler but hopefully it is also still present tomorrow as it is also presumably attracted by the apples – just a short flight to the garden.....

Some very poor photos:

Golden Eagle (kongeørn) below and White-tailed Eagle (havørn) above. Note the differnt silhouettes - Wt Eagle looks like a barn door!

Golden Eagle and Raven

one of the Golden Eagles

the two young White-tailed Eagles - play fighting or flirting?

Great Grey Shrike (varsler) in the snow

Tufted Duck (toppand) and Scaup (bergand) before it got light

Enjoy the beardies

Snow was falling all morning today but it is very dry airy snow so the depth of snow on the ground is not that much.

I was not confident of seeing much but gave Maridalen and Fornebu a try. Maridalen was very quiet except for a large flock of 26 Bullfinches (dompap) in a tree top close to a garden where there is a feeding station.

At Fornebu there were no small finches to grill but the Bearded Tits (skjeggmeis) were incredibly cooperative. I stopped at the same place where I saw them a couple of days ago and they were feeding in almost exactly the same reeds. Nearly completely silent as usual it was a bit of luck that I saw them although they did feed often in the tops of the reeds making them fairly visible. I watched them for close to an hour and a half and not once did they fly over the reeds or give calls that would have been audible over 30 metres away (and frequently less than 10m). During the whole period of time they kept with an area of reeds no more than 25  and fed nearly constantly. As I have mentioned before, when they arrived in the late autumn they called a lot and loudly, and responded to playback. Now they are calling infrequently, quietly, and do not respond to playback. When they first arrived they were presumably keen to find out if there were any of their kin here, food was perhaps plentiful and they were unsure as to whether they were going to stay here or disperse further hence they were noisy and inquisitive. Now they are here for the winter, have sussed out it is only the six of them, and they need to conserve energy in the cold. Their calling is just for communication within their small group. When they did call it was often when they dropped down to the base of the reeds where they were rooting around and seemingly drinking. In this respect they are identical to the Two-barred Crossbill flock which was also nearly silent until they were about to fly down to eat snow (drink).

The flock consists of three males and three females although it is not clear whether th

ey are three pairs. Only one of the females is ringed and one, possibly two, of the males. The ringer of the Bearded Tits at Øra reckons he ringed ca.90% of the birds there so even though this would be the most likely source of the Fornebu birds the fact that only a quarter (possibly a third) of the birds here are ringed suggests a more distant origin.

At home a flock of 30 Waxwing (sidensvans) flew over and the Robin and partially leucistic Fieldfare were still present.

I fired off close to 400 pictures of the Beardies and have spent quite a lot of time deleting the vast majority. Choosing the best ones was also not easy. The light was poor and the fastest ISO I was able to use was 1600.

all six Bearded Tits (skjeggmeis) are visible here.....

perhaps a bit easier to see all six here.....

and four here.....

and three here.....

and two here....

a female on her own

a female. Note how tiny their wings are

finally a male

Still searching

Birding really is quite difficult at the moment. A trip to Jeløy today where I specifically hoped to find Three-toed Woodpecker resulted in only six Great Spots. I walked the forest listening for tapping and discovered that old creaking trees can do quite good woodpecker impressions. I stood by one fallen tree that was leaning on another tree for about three minutes convinced that I was just blind and there was a woodpecker somewhere above me but in the end had to accept it was just the tree making the noise.

One definite highlight today though was that my Great Grey Shrike (varsler) radar is back in working order and I had two roadside birds along the E6 motorway in Akershus. Both birds were at regular sites for this species from previous winters.

The camera yet again remained warm and unused in my bag although back home I did take this photo of a partially leucistic Fieldfare (gråtrost). I initially thought the bird had snow on its head but closer inspection revealved that not to be the case....

partially leucistic Fieldfare (gråtrost)

There has also been a partially leucistic male House Sparrow in the garden for the last couple of years and I felt inspired to document this bird too. Leucism is a pigment problem which birds occasionally show and often results in white feathers although is not the same albinoism. It is often symmetric which is also the case on these two birds.

the best picture I could manage of the House Sparrow. The same leucism is shown on both wings and occurs on a single greater feather plus all the medium coverts. There are also some paler (although not white) feathers in the mantle.

Little reward

A three hour and 10km walk around Maridalen in lightly falling snow revealed surprisingly few birds and the camera stayed warm and safe in my back pack. A total of 11 Great Spotted Woodpeckers (flaggspett) was more than I had expected but surprisingly these were the only woodpecker species that revealed itself. It is still too early for drumming so most were located by hearing them tapping as they searched for food.

In the garden a Robin (rødstrupe) has turned up which is the first for the year and a Yellowhammer (gulspurv) and Bullfinch (dompap) dropped in alongside at least three different Blackbirds (svarttrost). What would be nice to find now would be an overwintering Blackcap (munk) which I have only had twice before over the last decade.