Damp dream

This winter hasn’t exactly been of the exciting kind when it concerns birding close to Oslo so today was the time to try to experience live, in the flesh, by my big wet dream from a couple of winters ago namely to see Hawk Owl (haukugle) and Pine Grosbeak (konglebit) in the same field of view and for the money shot to have the Grosbeak dangling bloodily from the claws of the owl.

Why did I think I would experience this? Well, over the last month or so there have been multiple reports of both species including flocks of up to 50 Grosbeaks from an area of Hedmark only a couple of hours drive from Oslo. The area is a broad valley with a winter-open forest road that only shows when you really drill down on google maps. This road I also found out costs 105kr to use! The weather was perfect for exploring for forest birds with virtually no wind and also great light with the sun often shining through a high and thin cloud base (which was luckily completely, and rather inexplicably, different to the forecast overcast conditions).

Hawk Owl was one of the very first birds I saw close to the road although it quickly moved away when I tried to take photos. I saw this bird on both the way in and way out and had another bird again close to the road but due to the very high wall of snow on the sides of the road I had no chance of getting any closer. So Hawk Owls were in the box but what about the other species necessary to give ecstasy? Well I had to work very hard for it but eventually had a calling bird fly right over me but this was hardly what I had been hoping for and was really a bit of let down.

I did though have an even rarer bird for the area in the form of another calling flyover but this time a very red male Two-barred Crossbill (båndkorsnebb). There were quite a few Common Crossbills (grankorsnebb) in the area either as ones or two with a pair singing and courtship feeding so breeding looks like it has started for this early nesting species.

A Black Grouse (orrfugl) flew off before I could take a photo but a small group of Willow Grouse (lirype) materialised around some cabins as I tried to find Siberian Jay (lavskrike) and the later gave itself up with a singing bird atop a small spruce tree.

So a really good selection of Scandinavian forest birds and all in beautiful scenery. This area definitely deserves more attention.

my best Hawkie shot on a frosty spruce

same bird but when the sun was behind a cloud

The first Hawkie - I managed this one shot before it flew further away - could have been a nice shot

at a safe distance from me

The day's rarest bird but a far from satisfactory sighting -Two-barred Crossbill and a nice male to boot



this female Common Crossbill showed well

a pair of Common Crossbills. The male was singing before the female flew in

Two Willow Grouse (lirype)

Siberian Jay

same bird in (distinctive) silhouette

today's stunning scenery

 

Some ducks

Things have been a little quiet on the/my birding front since Thursday night's fantastic close encounter of the owl kind. A trip into Maridalen revealed a few Moose of the non-photogenic kind in the woods by the feeding station and a Pygmy Owl (spurveugle) atop the highest tree it could find.

Temperatures have been up to +6C and are forecast to continue to be so which gives a spring feeling and many bids are singing including the Siskins (grønnsisik) in the garden and a Wood Pigeon (ringdue) is engaging in its display flight over the house.

A trip today to Frognerpark was of the usual non-rare-gull kind but I read off a few Herring Gull (gråmåke) colour rings and although 5 were of the usual kind with many observations in Oslo in the winter period but none elsewhere or in the breeding season I did have one bird that had never been recorded in Oslo before! It was ringed 13 months ago 48km away on a rubbish dump in Askim and has only been reported once since which was a month ago in Lillestrøm. One has to enjoy the small pleasures that life throws in your direction!

Luckily there weren't just gulls in Frognerpark:

one of the 5 female and a single male Teal (krikkand) that are wintering in Frognerpark

there are also varying numbers of Tufted Duck (toppand) on the lake with presumably movement between the lake and the fjord

 

Tengmalm's Owl

Per Christian and I arrived in the deep dark forests of Aurskog Høland at 8pm and were met by an amazing display of stars, a full moon slowly rising from the horizon, Jupiter shining brightly, a brief and weak display of the northern lights and silence. No owls were calling! We tried various paces which in previous years have produced Tengmalm’s Owls (perleugle) but heard nothing. We used playback without success although at one location did hear a very strange noise which we couldn’t decide as to whether it was animal or bird. We were not the only birders out though and whilst discussing how quiet things were we found out that the noise we heard was most likely that of a female Tengmalm’s.

We returned to the place where we heard the call and played the song of the male with no joy and then the same noise which I had found I had on my phone and to which we received a single call response. I have added this call in the video here and believe it is the following call in BWP “(5) Pair-formation calls of ♀. (a) Loud, short, hoarse, sometimes slightly shrill 'kjäck'; normally first call given by ♀ in pair-formation.” Shortly after this a bird started singing very close to us but the song was quiet and also a much faster tempo than the normal song which I believe is the following as described by BWP: “(3) Trill-call of ♂. Like Advertising-call but continuous, with units shorter and delivered more rapidly (8 per s in one recording, though this apparently rather fast); a soft 'dududu…'—almost uninterrupted for up to 10 min or more; audible only over a few hundred metres. Used to attract ♀ into nest-hole. Also given in short phrases in early stages of ♀'s nest-occupancy, during mating, and before and after delivering food to ♀ in nest early in incubation.”

It would therefore seem that we had discovered a pair.

We continued with playback and using our torches eventually picked up a bird in flight which then landed close to us and continued to sit in nearby trees after we had turned off the playback. When watching this owl in a spotlight it seemed so tiny and it is difficult to imagine it catching mice and swallowing them whole but it is a truly wonderful experience to be so close to it. I managed a few photos and some video although with no gloves on I ended up in excruciating pain in my fingers – but it was worth it!

The fact that we had no birds other than using playback suggests that it is a poor rodent and therefore owl year in these woods but it could also be that it is still too early and that they are not yet in full breeding mode.

We saw a couple of moose by the road and heard a fox but didn’t hear the wolves that apparently are in the area. No large owls either….

 

the best shot I managed - not bad but I reckon I could have done better if I could feel my fingers!

checking my pictures shows that there were actually two birds present or maybe one was a ghost...

 

 

Common

Just a dose of the normal Oslo city birding today. Yet again no rare gulls although by the Opera amongst ca.500 Herring Gulls (gråmåke) were a couple of the pale Glaucous hybrid look alikes. The recent colder weather has left a thin layer of ice over much of the fjord and a constantly moving dense flock of around 450 Goldeneyes (kvinand) were keeping a small area ice free although could have flown just a couple of hundred metres to open water.

In Frognerpark the gulls were very nervous and although I never saw the culprit I assume a Goshawk was nearby. A ringed Common Gull (fiskemåke) got me a bit interested as I didn’t recognise the ring as being one of the local sort. However it was and the bird JYAO had been ringed as an adult female exactly where I saw it nearly 5 years ago to the day (4 Feb 2010). It has been seen many times in Oslo, and primarily in Frognerpark, every winter since but there are no records outside of the winter period so we do not know where it breeds. I have also recorded the birds before (so should have recognised the type of ring) on 23 Feb 2014 and 4 Dec 2013.

Normally it is Herring Gulls that dominate here but today there were only 3 birds and there were far more Common and Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke) which flew in from the direction of Marienlyst Park and were more interested in drinking that eating the bread I was chucking out.

mixed flock of Common and Black-headed Gulls drinking in Frognerpark



Adult Common Gull JYAO which has been seen in Frognerpark every winter since being ringed here in 2010

 This evening an owling trip with Per Christian beckons – maybe we will hear something close to the Ural Owl box and Great Grey Owl platform we put up earlier in the winter. It is still very early in the year but this evening has a full moon and is forecast to be cloudless which is supposedly perfect owling conditions so the opportunity shouldn’t be overlooked.

Many kilometres, few birds

Today was not a good day. As someone who cares for the environment I drove far, far too much and as a birder I saw far, far too few birds.

I am rather confined to the car for the next few week as a visit to the doctor revealed that a knee that has been getting more and more painful over the last weeks has a meniscus tear and rest and physiotherapy are the initial prescription and will hopefully negate the need for any surgery. I decided to use the fantastic weather to take a very long tour through forest areas in the north and east of Akershus County. As usual with these types of trips it is owls, crossbills, woodpeckers and Grosbeaks that are the targets. Being inside a car obviously means that you will miss many birds but by covering large areas you actually have a good chance of picking up birds perched on the tops of trees which they often do when there is no wind and sun a there was today.

Well the forests were dead quiet! My grand total of half-interesting birds was a Pygmy Owl (spurveugle), a Black Woodpecker (svartspett) and a Three-toed Woodpecker (tretåspett) of which only the later made it onto the hard drive although the photo only just gets into the “dok. foto” category.

Even the Vorma River which last week had held lots of wildfowl was very quiet probably because much colder temperatures have caused birds to move on.

 

that this distant, underexposed woodpecker is a Three-toed cannot be ascertained by counting the toes but the thin slightly upward pointing bill plus the white stripe down the back reveal its identity

 

Moose

The forests around Oslo have a very healthy population of Moose (elg) which with the unnaturally low population of large carnivores that the Norwegian government permits to exist in this country is increasing year by year. Late in the winter they start to come to the edge of the city in search of food and those that come into the city (see one in our garden here) usually end up being shot as they are considered a traffic risk. To reduce the numbers coming into the city the council has begun putting out food in Maridalen to hopefully keep them there rather than continuing into the city. Feeding has only recently begun because with the mild winter the moose have been coping OK in the forest but already last week a max of 25 animals were seen eating from the silage bails that are put out.

I went to have a look today and only had three animals (they had been disturbed earlier) but there was plenty of evidence of the snow of the larger numbers that use the site. The animals I saw were not feeding but hiding in the shadows where they did not seem too wary.

Moose: cow and a very small calf

here the calf is right behind the cow and is visible as the dark area between and behind her legs

It was -10C today and with blue skies there was amazing light and colours in Maridalen which encouraged me to remove the telezoom lens and try some landscape shots.

the scene that greeted me as I drove into Maridalen and made me do a 180 to get my small lens that I had left at home

vegetation was covered in ice crystals

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Dipp(er)ing

A leisurely days birding today under blue skies. I met up with Per B and we enjoyed a walk around an iced over Østensjøvannet. There are just two areas of open water which are kept ice free by about 400 Mallards (stokkand) that are keep going the winter due to people feeding them (despite the misguided advice that has recently been given to not do so). Amongst the Mallards were 5 Greylag (grågås), 3 Canada and 3 Barnacle Geese (hvitkinngås) and a nasty Greylag x Canada hybrid. Coot (sothøne) numbers have risen to at least 20 from the previous 14 (birds returning from the south or late birds fleeing the north?). Surprisingly there were also 9 Mute Swans (knoppsvane) (a lone pair plus a pair still with 5 young in tow which flew in whilst we were there). In previous winters they wouldn’t be here but with the increase in their breeding population on the lake (from 1 to 5 pairs in only a few years) and subsequent competition for the best territories it is easy to think that some are gambling that they will win if they stay here for the winter.

A Dipper (fossekall) on the very narrow stream that leaves the lake at the north end showed ridiculously well (although my photographic attempts were disappointing).

In Frognerpark I failed in my continued attempts to find a rare gull but did enjoy views of the wintering Teal (krikkand) and a couple of Herons (gråhegre).

In the garden there continues to be good numbers of Siskin (grønnsisik) and Blackbirds (svarttrost).

Norway's national bird: Dipper

adult (left) and 1st winter Grey Heron in Frognerpark

close up on the 1st winter

the adult

Mallards are quite colourful

queuing for bread

Shrikes and Siskins

I had two birding goals for today: to find a Great Grey Shrike (varsler) which have been scarce this winter and also to find a white-winged gull of some description. I therefore chose the areas around Drøbak to the south of Oslo which held up to 3 Iceland Gulls (grønlandsmåke) a few winters ago. On the gull front I failed to impress but I had double joy with the Shrikes with different birds only 3km away from each other and which if I hadn’t seen them both within a five minute window I would have assumed to be the same bird as they can have large winter territories.

Great Grey Shrike #1

Great Grey Shrike #2. I had a bird in exactly the sae tree 1 December so this bird seems to have found a food rich winter territory

 

This winter is proving very poor for Crossbills (grankorsnebb) and Redpolls (gråsisik) over the whole of Norway with presumably a very poor spruce crop the reason. Siskins (grønnsisik) however seem quite common, at least around Oslo, and a flock of over 20 have made the garden home and have tripled the consumption of sunflower seed hearts in.

In Maridalen a flock of 19 Hawfinches (kjernebiter) is probably the highest number I have ever seen together and were feeding at a garden feeding station that also proved popular last winter. For me the photo opportunities from the road were poor but from inside the house they would have been superb!

male Siskin in the garden

 

female Siskin

many of the males including this one were singing and the female seemed quite interested. Siskins can start breeding in late winter if there is lots of food available