Urban Hawkie

 More birding lite yesterday with a trip into Maridalen and then a walk with the Beast in the neighbourhood. There were a few birds to see and a moose right by the road was a treat. The day ended on an unexpected high with a very urban Hawk Owl. At 8pm I got a message saying a Hawk Owl was sitting in a tree in a park after having been reported earlier in the day sitting on the pavement (having presumably collided with a car or a window). I had to pick up Jr from volleyball at 8:30pm which would give me 10 minutes on the way. I did not find the owl in those 10 minutes but did meet Knut Wagan and 10 minutes later he reported he had refound it and another 10 minutes later myself and Jr were watching it 😊

Initially perched high up on a spruce it then moved into a tree right by the road before then moving to a tree only 4 or 5 metres high in the in the middle of the road and only metres away from apartments. It was clearly looking for food and maybe there are rats in the area. This might also explain why it was found on the pavement earlier if it had plunged down into the gutter chasing a rat and had been hit by a car. I had taken the superzoom with me and given how dark it was I think it performed remarkably well. Later on in it was seen on top of the apartments, hunting from car roofs and ripping the head off a dead feral pigeon! Unfortunately it was not present again this morning.

this picture is taken with a shutter speed of 6/10 second at 20:45 and has transformed a dark park into a sunlight park!

here I was using the flash at too long range

this is with the flash at just a few metres range. Unfortunately the flash reflects off the snow flakes in the air

daylight picture. The preceeding two pictures are taken in the tree in the middle of the road to the left of the red car

Blue Tit (blåmeis) in Maridalen

male Bullfinch (dompap)

 

Coal Tit (svartmeis)

female Great Spotted Woodpecker (flaggspett)

Jay (nøtteskrike)

Moose (elg)

note that the left eye is an icy blue whilst the right eye is the normal brown colour. Note also the shape of the iris in both eyes

Red Squirrel (ekorn)

Teal (krikkand) in Frognerparken

Lite birding

 Yesterday was a birding lite day but I did check in on the Water Rail who is still enjoying his oats and experimented with taking photos of a Robin in the snow.

Robin (rødstrupe)

this bird is a 2cy (born last year). I think that many people assume that the presence of a wing bar on the greater coverts always means a bird is a youngster but adults can also have a thin wing bar. The pale tips to the tertial are however a sure sign of (young) age

Water Rail (vannrikse)

Siberian Jay

Yesterday saw Anders and I again engaging in the noble art of Taiga Birding. With sun and little wind forecast plus seemingly everyone who enters into the area recently having to wade their way through flocks (upto 100 strong) of Pine Grosbeaks we had high hopes. We did have a great day in great conditions – the trees were thickly covered in snow and when the cloud finally lifted in the afternoon the light was very special. We had three sightings of in total 5, normally difficult to see, Siberian Jays but did we find any Grosbeaks? No, we didn’t and that wasn’t for lack of trying Two Golden Eagles at quite close range (that have from other observations clearly been feeding on a carcass (moose?) for over a month were very nice although falling snow made them surprisingly difficult to see.

Siberian Jay (lavskrike)

a different bird

fantastic conditions!

Golden Eagle (kongeørn). All pictures are of the same bird which I think is an adult but I am far from sure..

Grey-headed Woodpecker

Winter has strengthened its grip with a new big dump of snow over the weekend and it will be a long while before the first migrants turn up around Oslo even though there are always signs that spring is coming. The days are getting longer and a bit of sun is all that is need for birds to start singing and this morning a Collared Dove was singing in the garden – a sound I definitely do not hear very often.

I needed to move my body today so went on a hike in the forest to search for a Grey-headed Woodpecker seen at the weekend. Luckily there was a winter open road to walk on (a barrier stopped me driving it) which made things a bit easier. The 2km walk was incredibly birdless with just a Nutcracker noted but when I got to the area of cabins where the woodpecker had been seen there were loads of birds that were obviously attracted to food that is put out. Bullfinches, Blue, Great and Coal Tits were all in double figures and amongst them were Willow Tit, Crested Tit, Nuthatch, Jay, Redpoll, Great Spotted Woodpecker and after a short wait the female Grey-headed ‘pecker. She didn’t show at the very close range that I had hoped for but was a nice sighting of a bird I normally only see 1 or 2 of each year.

I met the owner of the cabin who was a real outdoors man who spends his time tracking and filming wolves and was very upset that he would have to buy a smart phone as his new electric car required the use of an app if he was to charge it at a public charger 😉

female Grey-headed Woodpecker (Gråspett)

jizz look surprisingly like a Three-toed 'pecker

Bullfinches (dompap)

In the filed I thought this Redpoll was an arctic in the field but these pictures suggest that it is a common with too much black straking on the undertail coverts, black streaks within the white rump (which looks so large because the bird is preening and has its feathers puffed up) and and a too large bill

Little Grebe

Some images from a snowy Oslo today

Little Grebe (dvergsykker) in Oslo Harbour 

Little and the Large Silent type 

this 2cy Mute Swan has moulted a lot of its brown juvenile feathers and replaced them with white adult feathers

and will one day look like this and no longer be the ugly duckling

a Cormorant (storskarv) of the race sinensis (mellomskarv)

male Velvet Scoters (sjøorre)

female Velvet Scoter