3rd time NOT lucky

Another attempt for the Slavonian Grebes with my 5 year old - she wanted to practice riding her bike and I got to choose the location. Yet again no luck. When birds like this go missing it makes you wonder what else is hiding out there.
A male Gadwall was scant compensation.
Summer has now arrived: temperatures are now over 20C and the nights are warm. Soon there should be Corncrakes and Marsh Warblers turning up and with luck also in Maridalen.

Dipping again

I went looking for Slavonian Grebes at Østenjovannet in Oslo again today after having failed to see them on Saturday during a family walk. And I failed again. It was therefore a but galling to find out later that they were seen whilst I was there. Apparantly though they were frequently hiding in the reeds (getting ready to breed?).
I did see White-fronted and Pink-footed Goose which appear to be oversummering but failed to see the Bar Headed Goose (did see it on Saturday). Given this bird is quite large and distinctive my powers of observation were obviously not at their peak today. A Brent Goose was seen here yesterday so along with the resident Greylag, Canada and Barnacle that makes 7 species of geese at the same site in summer. Can't be many places that can match that.-

750km

Left the house at 0440 and home at 2310. Eighteen and a half hours and 750km on the road!! The day started well and ended well but the two main targets of the trip eluded me.
Today's trip was planned as a tour of Hedmark county and the targets were Rustic Bunting and Siberian Tit (both lifers) and Ortolan Bunting. Both the Buntings are in serious decline in Norway and Rustic could well be extinct in the next couple of years with Ortolan not lasting much longer.

At 0630 I was watching 2 singing Ortolans not far from Elverum.
I did not spend enough time enjoying these fine birds as I was too keen to search for the Rustic Bunting. The sight for these is along the Kynna river. This year a handful of birds have been recorded but it is a very large area. I spent 4 hours searching along the river in suitable habitat but without joy. I did see Redstart, Cuckoo, Pied Fly, Black Grouse, Whinchat, Icterine Warbler, Mistle Thrush, Yellow Wagtail and this Parrot Crossbill.

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Animals were represented by a female Elk with a baby and a Roe Deer plus countless Beavers dams along the river. Birding is hard going in this area and birds are quite few and far between but it is a fascinating habitat.
It was already 1230 and I decided that I would cut my losses with the Rustic Bunting and head north for Siberian Tit. The drive was a bit longer than I expected - 3 hours - through wide river valleys and pine forests with occasional lakes and marshes. Along the way were a couple of Cranes, Black Throated Diver, Wigeon, Tufted Ducks, Greenshank and Redshank.
At the Siberian Tit site (which I have visited twice before without luck) I walked around for a couple of hours and saw Willow Tits in 3 sites, a pair of Great Tits, Pied Fly and Redstart but no sign of Siberian Tit or Siberian Jay which I have seen here before. I had a bird calling away in the firest which I did not recognise. I had stuplidly left my ipod in the car so could not check what it was but on returning to car discovered it was a singing Hawk Owl! I decided not to go back to locate it as time was getting on and I had at least four hours drive home. Lesson learned: do not forget ipod in future!!
So the good end to the day? The return trip took me over Ringebufjellet which rises to over 1000m. There was still ice on the lakes and lots of snow and it appeared that birds were only just arriving back with Golden Plovers still in flocks on the lower slopes. On the open water were 4 Velvet Scoters, Wigeon & Tufted Ducks and the highlight: 6 Red-necked Phalaropes:

They gave fantastic views feeding around the edge of a small lake. Also in the area Whimbrel, Redhank, Bluethroat and Lapland Bunting.
Despite missing out on the 2 lifers the day was a fantastic birding trip.

Birds to the north...birds to the south

Yesterday evening there was some movement of birds in the outer Oslo fjord (skuas, Black Tern and Brent Geese) so with suitable weather conditions (light southerly winds) forecast for today I decided for an early start. Up at 4am and with destination Hulvik which is in the south of Oslo & Akerhus county and a good place for seawatching. Now seawatching in the Oslo fjord rarely produces large numbers of birds but patience can (apparantly) be rewarded. I was patient for 2 hours and 20 minutes and did I get rewarded? Not really.
I did have 11 Red Throated Divers and 4 Guillemots flying north and about 30 each of Common and Velvet Scoter sitting on the sea but this does not set the pulse racing. The divers will be heading for inland Norway to breed but quite where the Guillemots were heading I am not sure. On land I heard 6 species of Warbler singing including Wood Warbler aswell as both Flycatchers.
I continued south into Østfold county to check out Kurefjorden - a supposed wader hotspot. 6 Ringed Plover and 3 Redshank were not very hot though (especially as on the other side of Oslofjord there are currently 3 Broad Billed Sandpipers). Next stop was Brentetangen near Moss which is where the seawatching was good yesterday. The presence of 6 other birders told me that something was happening and when I asked what was about I was told there had been 2 male Surf Scoters but htey had now flkown off south! I had considered making this my original destination but chose Hulvik instead. Oh well. I stayed there an hour and a half but was only rewarded by a handful of migrating divers.
On arriving home and checking the internet I saw that someone else had been seawatching about 10km north of Hulvik and had seen Sandwich Tern (a norwegian tick and rarity) and Arctic Skua this morning.
So choosing a point in the middle could have given me the best of both worlds but instead gave me the worst of both worlds...

A twitch ensued?

Chose to visit Østensjøvannet today, a shallow, reed fringed lake within the Oslo city limits.
When I got there at 10am the paths around the lake were already heaving with kids from the nearby school having running practice. The birds here though are quite used to this. I had Garden Warblers and Pied Flycatchers singing from scrubby areas and a Long tailed Tit getting very agitated with a pair of Magpies that were presumeably close to its nest. Overhead there were around 300 Swifts which have now arrived in force with a few House Martins and Swallows mixed in.
On the lake there were the usual Great Crested Grebes, Canada & Greylag Geese, Tufted Ducks, Coots and Moorhens aswell as many Black Headed Gulls which breed here. As I scanned the lake I heard a call which I couldn't place as a gull or a tern. And then I saw only 20 metres away a fine summer plumaged Little Gull. It was a very confiding bird and would have allowed me to take a great photo if only I had my camera with me. A mobile phone through the bins though is always a good alternative as this fine potrait proves.

I texted the bird's presence to a friend who then put it out on the national alert system and after half an hour got a call from a birder who had come to look for it. He soon joined me and we had great views. Does one other birder qualify as a twitch?
The bird had a very small amount of black in the primary tips making it a 2nd summer but it also had a hint of pink on the body feathers. A fine fine bird.
Continuing around the lake I heard 3 (and saw 1) Reed Warblers and found a Pink-footed Goose and White-fronted Goose (which has been around for a coupe of months) amongst the Greylag Geese.

Great habitat...but no birds

Today I walked 12km through the forest north of Maridalen including an area of old spruce forest which holds Capercaille and Three Toed Woodpecker. What did I see? Droppings of the first and marks on trees from the second but did I see the birds? Of course not.
In fact I saw nothing out of the normal in the forest at all. The best birds were in Maridalen itself where I had in total 3 singing Roesfinches. The only one I actually saw was a brown bird so still no fine red male. Also good numbers of Spotted Flycatchers which looked to be newly arrived and a very distant singing Wood Warbler. Whilst sitting down to listen to the Wood Warbler, a Willow Warbler with a beak full of nesting material landed only a few metres away from me. After a couple of minutes it dropped down to the ground and after it had left I was able (after a bit of searching) to discover its tiny nest on the ground hidden under some long grass.
Also in Maridalen were 3 very small Lapwing chicks with a parent which was very satisying to see as they seem to get less common each year.

In this picutre from the high point of my walk (Mellomkollen) you can see Maridalsvannet (lake) on the left with Oslo city and Oslofjord rear right.

Today was a national holiday (Pentecost) and a family trip to Fornebu was again in order. Whilst we walked around I saw my first Hobby of the year. My attention was drawn to it by a small colony of Sand Martins I was watching which suddenly flocked together and flew away. I didn't manage a picture of the Hobby but did get this short video of the Sand Martins.

Otherwise there was a Wood Sandpiper feeding on a very small pond in which we also saw some Great Crested Newts.

Garden nature

When birds are scarce then butterflies often offer some interest. In the garden today we found this female Green Hairstreak which was very tired and presumeably on its last legs after having survived the winter and laying its eggs.

This is a very small butterfly. The picture was taken at a distance of 1cm and the picture has been cropped.
Otherwise in the garden we have nesting Blue and Great Tits, singing Lesser Whitethroat, a Pied Flycatcher singing from 3 houses away.

Rosefinch

A cycle ride around Maridalen this afternoon turned up the desired species: a singing Rosefinch. At first I was unable to see the bird but after I walked under the tree it was singing from I was a little disappointed to see it was a young male and therefore completely lacked any red in its plumage. Nevermind, more will surely turn up and if they are as confiding as this bird then I should managed some decent photos.

Quite possible the best birder in.....his own mind

I rescued an email from my SPAM folder today that confirmed (?) what I have long suspected… I am the best birder in Norway :-). The email didn’t actually use those words but it announced that I was the winner of the latest NOF (Norwegian equivalent of RSPB) mystery bird competition. Here is a link to the 2 photo’s I had to identify. http://www.birdlife.no/organisasjonen/pdf/fotonott_2010_1.pdf
Joking aside, it was nice to win a competition for once but the prize could have been different – it was the (great) Norwegian where to watch book that I have recently purchased!
Birding today was limited to a short trip to Maridalen where I again saw the Wryneck as well as an Osprey and 2 singing Icterine Warblers, which were the first there this year.

Good things come to those who put in the effort..

Today was another up at 0430 day. I was in the field from 0515 until 1430 and then had another hour out in the evening. Highlight was one of my very favourite birds which I was beginning to fear I would not see this year - a Wryneck and to make it even better it was in Maridalen. I permit myself to show a picture and 2 videos, the second of which has a better recording of the call which to my ears is very like Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.



Not much else at Maridalen although i did hear Black Woodpecker. Scarlet Rosefinches are starting to turn up now and although I didn't find one in Maridalen today I expect to soon. The Wryneck was seen on my evening outing.
The morning destination was Årnestangen. I was very lucky here to have just walked the couple of kilometres to the hide before it began to rain (very heavily) for 2 hours. I had a hope that this rain would ground many waders and Black Terns and Little Gulls - well dream on.

For my 9 hours of effort I was rewards by a Temminck's Stint
a few Dunlin, a very distant immature Peregrine, a Merlin, a flock of 120 Goosander, 4 Ospreys, a Garden Warbler and some Yellow Wagtails. The 2 males that I saw well appeared to be a cross between the race Thunbergi (Grey Headed Wagtail) which is the commonest race in Norway and race Flava (Blue Headed Wagtail) which does breed in southern norway. The 2 pictures below are of different birds but both show the white supercilium of flava but the head colour is the grey of thunbergi rather than the blue of flava

Additionally a singing Reed Warbler and singing icterine Warbler were year ticks taking me to 162 so far in 2010.

Can 4 days really make such a difference?

4 days ago the Svellet area of Nordre Øyeren held around 2000 waders, primarily Greenshank and Wood Sandpiper. I have not been able to get out birding the last 4 days so I was very excited when I arrived at Svellet this morning. And what did I see? Well in total I had 14 waders!!! The water level has risen a lot but there was still very large areas of mudflats. Perhaps these were not so rich in food as they have been exposed for so long but just as likely is that the spring migration is very concentrated and the birds simply cannot wait to move north to their breeding grounds. This picture shows what was present:

Greenshank, Redshank and Wood Sandpiper.

I checked a few other sites trying to find the Caspian Tern that had been moving around the area of the last few days but failed to find it. The best I managed were a pair of Marsh Harriers at a presumed breeding site and a couple of Honey Buzzards which looked to be migrating.

Mr & Mrs Toad

Another late evening visit to Maridalen produced large numbers of toads in the margins of the lake and these two hopping along the road.

We also saw the Owl again and found its preferred roost site which was remarkably low down in a spruce tree. There were 3 pellets and they appeared mostly to have bird remains including feather shafts and a beak.

Early this morning a Red Rumped Swallow was seen at Fornebu and I was able to get down there an hour and a half later with the girls. Unfortunately we didn't refind it (as did nobody else) but there were good numbers of Swifts which were new for the year.

Promise made....promise kept

On the way home from kindergarten I asked my 5 year old if she wanted me to show her Tawny Owl and Beaver in Maridalen after her little sister had gone to bed. She did and then the I realised that I would be lucky to find them both.

Well.....

The Tawny Owl showed as it has the previous 2 evenings although and this time we had the scope and had breathtaking views although the following picture does not do full justice

Then we approached the beaver dam and straightaway spotted a beaver swimming towards us which submerged when only 15m away and then swam under us as we stood on the bridge.

I really don't know who was happier the 5 year old or the 37 year old!