To tick or not to tick, that is the question

In my previous post I wrote about my unsuccesful attempt to see a Pallid Swift on Friday whilst stood at Fornebu and the bird was at Nesoddtangen a mere 3.5km away over the fjord. I did not see the bird, but saw the birders who has seen it, and therefore did not need to consider the question as to whether I could add the bird to my Norwegian list which I was actually quite happy about.

On Saturday morning though as I ate breakfast a message came through that the bird was back at the same spot where it had been seen the day before. Even though Nesoddtangen is only 12km from my kitchen table as the swift flies it is a 53km drive which with windy roads would take at least 55 minutes. Another option is to take the ferry from downtown Oslo which if you time everything perfectly would be a quicker option but can easily take even longer door to door if you have to wait for the ferry. As I had committed to take Jr Jr out driving I decided that a trip to Nesoddtangen was off the cards but how about a repeat of Friday’s attempt from Fornebu which is only a 10 minute drive away? It was worth a try.

 After a bit of searching which didn’t reveal the bird I suddenly picked out two birders who by the synchronised movements of their cameras were watching the bird flying low amongst some houses and every now again I could clearly see a dark small bird zooming past a white house! I had clearly seen the bird but could I really say I knew what I was watching and tick it? I decided to see if I could digitally document my observation and yes it is possible to document a one pixel wide dot at 3.5km range but the documentation does not help in convincing anyone that it is really a Pallid Swift or even a swift for that matter.

It was nice to look at the pictures that were taken by thepeople I could see watching the dark dot and also some super pictures taken later in the day but they were documenting a level of detail that I had not seen.

I hoped that I could avoid making a decision by taking the ferry over to Nesoddtangen on Sunday morning and joined a few other birders who were also late to the party but the bird had done a bunk (or perhaps perished overnight).

So what to do? I had undoubtedly seen the bird but were the views “tickable”? The temptation to add the bird to my Norwegian and Akershus list was very high (I have seen the bird further south in Europe so it is not a lifer) but I have previously not been backward in expressing my views when others have “ticked” birds based on equally bad views and as I seem to be so concerned with ethics in birding then of course I knew (not so) deep down that I could not add the bird to my official lists no matter how much I wanted to and how easy it would have been to do so.

I’ll have to find one of my own some time although as there have only been about 40 observations in Norway it ain’t an easy species to find.

This still from the video below shows all of the necessary field characters to allow one to safely NOT add the species to your Norwegian list. The bird is so easy to see that the red ring I have added is hardly needed..... Note the two birders who seemed to be having great views and were much easier to see at 3.5km range 

Aker Brygge at 0809 on a chilly Sunday morning as I made my way to the Nesoddtangen ferry

a new view for me as I look from Nesoddtangen towards Oslo. I have looked the opposite way countless times

A very frustrating day

This post will not make me any friends and possibly some enemies but after sleeping on it and now having, if not ice cold, then luke warm blood in my veins I still want to publish it (although have now toned it down through many iterations...).

 

Yesterday was a day of high temperatures and not just the continued barmy weather.

 

First, I got very wound up and my piss stated to boil by the blingers at Fornebu. On a number of my visits this autumn I have, upon getting out of the car, been greeted by the sounds of a Best of Eastern Vagrants mix tape being played by a net which is a whole 250m away. This goes on for at least three hours whilst the blinger(s) hope they will pull a rarity from the nets and completely disturbs all other life (both bird and human) in the nature reserve. Raising my displeasure about it hasn’t resulted in any change in actions and nor have any rarities been pulled from the nets (far more is recorded here by birders with bins than blingers with bling). Well, the tape (or in these days digital recording) was playing again yesterday and my heart dropped and blood started to boil at the thought of another ruined visit. I found an area though where I could stand which was a bit sheltered from the noise by the lay of the land and actually found some birds. All this time I was able to observe that the net was not being checked (way over half an hour) and when I did eventually spy the blingers they were engaged in an extended selfie photo shoot with a scarce bird they had caught and then proceeded to parade it around. Everything I was observing was against the rules governing ringing in Norway and is why for a lot of us ringing has such a bad reputation – for far too many blingers it is a hunt for rarities and good times hiding behind the excuse of being an important scientific activity (that is the only legal reason that people are allowed to trap birds and put them through the inherent stress and discomfort this causes them).

Just so it is clear I am a big supporter of the serious Constant Effort Scheme ringing that is carried out at two Bird Observatories in Norway plus some other Observatories that take their work monitoring birds very seriously even if they do not have the resources to run CES schemes. I also fully support specific research with a conservation goal and cheer the use of modern technology that means a single tagged bird can answer more questions than 100 years and 10,000 birds worth of old fashioned ringing ever managed. But it's all the ad-hoc "let’s find a rarity" ringing that boils my piss. And further boiling occurs because many blingers don’t see the problem – birds are just objects to be (physically) exploited for their enjoyment. I think the problem is that the ringers get so caught up in the excitement of the catch (it triggers a basic human instinct) that they forget exactly what they are doing and why they are supposed to be doing it - it is the exact same instinct that drives photographers, twitchers and birders in general to chase birds and sometimes cross boundaries but the one important distinction is that only one of these requires a specific dispensation in law to be carried out.

For anyone interested, here is a summary of the laws/rules/guidelines for ringing in Norway (all in Norwegian of course).

There are very few explicit laws that govern ringing but two things that are stated very clearly are that trapped birds shall be ringed and released immediately and traps and nets should be continually watched (“Ved bruk av fangstredskap for å ringmerke fugl og merke flaggermus, skal fangede individer straks merkes og slippes fri. Fangstredskapet skal være under kontinuerlig tilsyn når det står til fangst.”)

These rules are almost impossible for single ringer to follow so the body charged with organising ringing in Norway has in its handbook decided to define continuous as meaning at least every 30 minutes and with ringed birds has allowed for there to be a 5 minute photo shoot after the bird has been processed and ringed.

Make of that what you will and also remember that if you ever witness ringing in action. How long is it really acceptable for a bird to hang in a net on damp morning right beside a loud speaker at full volume and in an area where cats prowl and humans walk with their dogs?

 

I had a long email exchange with the two bodies responsible for ringing in Norway way back in 2014. This was as a result of a young Great Grey Owl being found with a broken leg due to a twig having got stuck between its leg and the ring and the bird would have died a long, painful death had it not been found (although I suspect that it exchanged that for being put down). I contacted the authorities-that-be to hear what the consequences of this would be as clearly the ring had either not been attached properly or perhaps a wrong ring size was used. The reply I got was literally “shit happens” and I also found out that there was no reporting on how many birds that died during the course of ringing but was assured it's not a problem even though they had zero data to back that up. There was a data field for this in the reporting software but it was not active. I expressed my shock at the cowboy like state of affairs but have since then kept my feelings on ringing mostly to myself as I feel there are few birders here who share my concerns.

It was therefore very pleasing to see in the Ringers Handbook (in the link above) published in 2025 (but seemingly written in 2021 and promised in 2017…) that ringers now have to report dead birds in the now activated data field and it actually says that anyone who deliberately neglects to do so will see the removal of their ringing licence (en bevisst neglisjering av dette [dead birds] vil medføre at merkelisensen blir inndratt eller ikke fornyet) so it looks like when I thought I was banging my head against a wall that I may have actually brought about some change for the good. Maybe I will have to recharge my attempt to make Norwegian Ringing Ethical Again.

 

The second annoyance of the day was that a Pallid Swift was found and I didn’t see it. As I arrived to look over the fjord from Fornebu a message came through that a Pallid Swift was at Nesoddtangen. I could see Nesoddtangen from where I was standing and through the scope could see the person who had sent the message at a range of 3.5km. But the persons (there were actually 3 of them) did not look like they were actually watching a swift. It transpired that the bird had been seen for half an hour and the finder had managed to inform local birders who managed to get there and see it but by the time the rest of us were informed that bird had disappeared not to be seen again. Just as well probably because I would then have had to decide whether the views would have been “tickable” or not. I did however have to answer that conundrum today after the bird was refound this morning but my decision will have to wait until my next blog post. 

 

Did I see any birds though? I had three Bearded Tits and three Chiffchaff in the reedbed at Storøykilen and one of the chiffies was a tristis with a ring on. While looking for the Pallid Swift I was informed that the long staying but not often seen King Eider was on the fjord off of Nesoddtangen and sure enough on a mirror flat sea I could make it out at a range of 3.5km and those views were just about tickable.

In Maridalen all the Whooper Swans and the Pink-footed Geese have left and Jack saw a family of 4 Whoopers and a Pink-foot flying over Sørkedalen which were surely from the Dale. A single Pygmy Owl revealed it self to me in the same place as before and has presumably found a good hunting ground although I have yet to see it catch anything.

female Bearded Tit (skjeggmeis)

pair

a ringed tristis Chiffchaff. In addition to looking right it also had the right call

this unringed bird also looks like a tristis (in fact looks pretty much identical to the ringed bird above) but did not give the right call when I was watching it although that doesn't rule it out from being a tristis

Pygmy Owl (spurveugle) - one of at least 3 birds that have been discovered in Maridalen this autumn

where I was stood, where the Pallid Swift was seen and where the King Eider was swimming. Birding as it should be ;-)

An attempt at a seawatch

It has been commented that I moan about the weather nearly as much as I write about birds and that is no doubt correct and to prove it – the weather is just wrong at the moment! +12C night and day, southerly winds, overcast and drizzle and not a good, out of season bird to show for it…I’m hoping for Pallid Swift, Hoopoe, Desert Wheatear or at the absolute minimum a Firecrest…

I’m not sure if out of desperation or a real expectation that there would be something good but I found myself sea gazing at Krokstrand yesterday. The site of many a good seawatch a decade or more ago it now serves as a reminder of how autumn weather patterns and arrivals of seabirds have changed. For the nostalgia value it was good to be there and remember previous visits with skuas of all 4 species, Brunnich’s Guillemot, Sabines Gull, Grey Phalarope and all the more expected but still for these parts unusual stuff. Yesterday wasn’t a disaster and there were birds and not just sea to gaze at but it was not a day that will be remembered in a week’s time let alone a decade’s time. Three Kittiwakes were the best of the bunch and there were double digit numbers of Guillemots along with three each of Razorbill and Little Auk but I could just as easily have seen the auks in Oslo.

A nocturnal visit into Maridalen with the thermal imager revealed unsurprisingly that Woodcock are still around with 4 seen along a short stretch. Slightly more unusual was a single Common Snipe and two Fieldfares that were seemingly roosting on the ground in a stubble field. Nearby at least 20 Magpies were roosting together in some isolated bushes. A Tawny Owl called but I picked up no other owls hunting over the stubble fields despite there seeming to be increasing numbers of mice.

Krokstrand looking south towards more open sea

and looking north towards Oslo and the end of the fjord

Woodcock (rugde) taken just with the aid of my head torch

and here using the camera's inbuilt flash. Note how far up the mud goes on the birds long beak showing quite how deep it has been probing for worms

a Fieldfare (gråtrost) one of two which I believe were roosting on the ground rather than nocturnal feeding

and a Common Snipe (enkeltbekkasin)

an unusually easy to observe Little Grebe (dvergdykker) on the park lake at Valle Hovin. In Norway it is unusual to see one so well

Making Owling Great Again

To Make Owling in the future Great Again Per Christian has been banging together Tengmalm’s nest boxes and Great Grey Owl platforms and on Sunday I helped him hang them up along Owl Road. Hopefully they will be used already next spring and if so will make finding these species so much easier.

Whilst we were out we did not see either of the two species but did have a really nice encounter with a Pygmy Owl.

Today I had a perhaps even better with another Pygmy Owl in Maridalen and maybe we should be hanging up nesting boxes for them although I think they will have no lack of natural (Great Spotted) Woodpecker holes to use.

I also visited Østensjøvannet today as a swift was reported nearby yesterday. Although reported as a Common Swift it is far more likely that it was a Pallid. It is relatively warm at the moment (close to 10C) but there are no visible flying insects so a Swift will struggle in the city so it was no surprise that I did not refind it. A Scaup was far more expected but still good bird to find and at least two Water Rails were an addition to my Oslo year list.

me underneath a GG Owl platform

and Per Christian putting it up

me and a Tengmalm's box

The Pygmy Owl on Owl Road which can be heard giving its autumn song in the video:

Pygmy Owl (spurveugle)

And today's bird in Maridalen:

the Scaup (bergand) at Østensjøvannet

and a Water Rail (vannrikse)

Wigeon (brunnakke)

the female Pintail (stjertand) at Østensjøvannet

and a big surprise was this flock of Pintails flying over Owl Road

Good end to the month

The last day of October was surprisingly good in Maridalen and I added 3 species to my Oslo 2025 year list. With 178 species so far 2025 is a completely average year (at least according to my eBird stats) but is way behind last years record haul.

First up was a flyover Parrot Crossbill. There are as good as no Common Crossbills left in Oslo’s forests so any crossbill is a good bird at the moment and get perhaps more attention than it would have last year.

Second up was a real Oslo rarity and one I didn’t see last year – Marsh Tit. A pair had been seen on Sunday so I have had them on my radar but it was first today that I heard their characteristic pitchuu call and then got to see them (they look very similar to the far commoner Willow Tits and call is by far the easiest way to tell the two species apart). They didn’t hang around for long as they continued on their travels looking for food but will hopefully be here all winter and maybe breed next year. Marsh Tit is a proper and surprising rarity in Oslo despite there being established populations only a few kilometres beyond the county line in for example Lørenskog. These are only my third record in Oslo after a bird at Østensjøvannet in October 2017 and then a bird that spent the winter of 2018/19 in Maridalen at the exact same spot where I saw today’s birds. It does look like the species was commoner in Oslo in the past although I can find only a single breeding record from 2000 but there is also a big problem interpreting the many undocumented reports many of which I would suggest should be accompanied by a helping of salt. On that note though I do have to admit that my attempt to document today’s sighting was extremely poor and is barely a record shot. My excuses are that I was walking the Beast and only had the superzoom but most embarrassingly I have now found out that the (good) video I thought I had taken which included the call does not exist because in time honoured fashion I clearly only pressed the record button when I was finished so have some useless video as the camera swung from shoulder….

The current birds could of course just have wandered from one of the close populations but given that all other species of tit are irrupting this year then it would be no surprise if Marsh Tits are also on the move so these could well have come from far away.

Last up and also an addition to my Norwegian 2025 lists was a female Grey-headed Woodpecker. I initially saw her quite close but had my usual series of camera problems so didn’t manage to do her justice but with luck she has already chosen to spend the winter in Maridalen and will turn up on some feeders.

the pictures I got of the Marsh Tits (løvmeis) probably do count as a record shot as the one that is in focus where the bird is looking at me does show the pale spot at the base of the upper mandible and that the back of the cheek is not white but rather creamy

my best pic of the Grey-headed 'pecker is a little bit better but hardly good

my flight shots are of their usual dismal quality but it is IDable

perched a long way away where it did also call

picture of a Jay (nøtteskrike) are much better and it is also a much smarter bird

Long-tailed Tits (stjertmeis)

autumnal reflections

the Pink-footed Goose (kortnebbgås) is still with the Whoopers (sangsvane) but is a master at disappearing in the stubble

and here some footage of a pod of at least 5 Harbour Porpoises that I saw in the fjord whilst auk watching on Wednesday

a Harbour Porpoise (nise)

and 5 of them that just floated on the surface for a few seconds

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