Puffin n Piney

 It has continued to blow freshly from the south so the fjord has been of interest with the hope of some interesting seabirds. On Friday I watched from Fornebu rather than Huk as I needed to be close to the car and Halden Brygge allows you to watch basically from the car park. I already knew that a Puffin had been seen close by earlier in the day so this was again on my radar as was Brunnich’s Guillemot. There were lots of auks moving around and I tried to identify every bird I saw with over 200 Guillemot and around 40 Razorbill noted. One bird got my pulse racing for a bit but proved to be a Common Guillemot still in partial summer plumage but 2 Puffins were a lot easier to identify. One flew by on its own at relatively close range and allowed photos to be taken and half an hour later what I assume to be another bird flew past at much longer range with Guillemots and could be seen to fly close past Huk on the other side of the fjord.

I also went Grozza hunting and had 3 birds in Maridalen and 28 at Grefsenkollen all of which were probably 1^st cy birds (no adult males). Today I had 25 in Maridalen of which one was an adult male. In the last week I have observed 112 birds and only 4 have been adult males. This ratio of 4% compares with about 40% two winters ago. What is driving this 10 fold difference?

 Tomorrow I am guiding with Grozzas, forest birds and seabirds hopefully all on the agenda. Let’s see what the Bird Gods have in mind for me…

Puffin (lunde) close to Fornebu with Huk, Bygdøy in the distance

Huk in the distance and Puffin close to it - honest. I actually reckon this does count as a record shot as the bird smudge to the left is a Guillemot and the Puffin to the right. The Puffin has dark underwings, stubby wings and a dark head whilst the other smudge doesn't .....

1st winter Kittiwake (krykkje)

14 of a flock of 21 Pine Grosbeaks (konglebit) with not an adult male in sight

Wawings (sidensvans)

Black-headed Gull (hettemåke)

2 Razorbills (alke) and a Guillemot (lomvi)

adult male Grozza from today

Double ton up in the Dale

Yesterday was a big day for me. I reached the double ton on my local patch! I have been wondering what species #200 would be and feared House Sparrow (a species oft erroneously reported in the Dale and never documented there but a bird that can obviously turn up) but luckily it was something more exciting. I had spent the morning sea-gazing at Huk, Bygdøy hoping for a rare auk or two but had to content myself with a single Little Auk and a large arrival of Kittiwakes with at least 35 1^st winters (not a single adult noted) whizzing past. What I did not expect later in the day was to see a 1^st winter Kittiwake flying low over the forest in Maridalen whilst I was watching two Pine Grosbeaks.

So #200 was not an extreme rarity but Kittiwake is a fitting species and is only the second record of a living bird in the Dale. What will be my 300^th bird? 😊

Maridalen #200 - a 1st winter Kittiwake (krykkje)

and a better picture of one of the birds at Huk

it was quite dark in the forest where the Pine Grosbeaks (konglebit) were and I used the built in camera flash

without flash

More Grozzas

Monday, I was guiding Karle from Bristol and I had suggested we go looking for some of the forest specialities which I had easily found on Friday. Then the Grosbeaks turned up at the weekend and everything seemed set for a good day’s guiding. The weather wasn’t the best with it being really overcast but the wind wasn’t too strong and I still had faith. It was all very quiet though and hardly anything wanted to play ball. The Grosbeaks took a LOT of work and were only seen poorly with a Sparrowhawk probably the cause. Nutcracker, Waxwing, heard only Black Woodpecker and Crested, Willow and Long-tailed Tits were the best of the rest on a day when the Bird Gods obviously felt they had rewarded me well enough the previous days.

Tuesday was great sunny weather again and of course when I popped into Maridalen a load of Grozzas showed really well. I had 14-22 birds and there was not a single male amongst them. Today I had 7 birds and again not a single adult amongst them although a young male decided to sing in the sun which is the first time I can remember hearing one singing.

nice bird, nice light, lots of berries. Pine Grosbeak (konglebit)

note the remain of berries on the bill including frothy juice and the sliced open berry from which the seeds have been extracted

a beautifully coloured young male

this bird was singing (hear in the video) so must also be a 1cy male

lots of auks have appeared in the fjord and inland despite us not having a storm. Here a Razorbill (alke) and Guillemot (lomvi) side by side

this Guillemot was one of 11 I saw on Maridalsvannet and it is very unusual to see them on land like this. A Brunnich's Guillemot has turned up inland north of Oslo and it would be VERY nice if one would turn up in Oslo

a late Mistle Thrush (duetrost) in Maridalen. I also had White Wagtail, Meadow Pipit and Wood Pigeon today all of which are late records

Pine Grosbeaks are back!

I moved to Norway in February 2001. I had a long list of scandi birds I wanted and expected to see but soon found out that most of them did not occur around Oslo and would require some travel. Pine Grosbeak was at the top of my list alongside Hawk Owl but it took me ten years to see my first birds and that required a trip to Pasvik in Finnmark with Per Christian. My first bird in Oslo was not until 29 October 2012 which was the first of many I saw that winter when there was a quite sizeable invasion of the species into southern Scandinavia. Locals talk about invasion occurring every 20 years and me having to wait nearly 12 years to see one close to home fitted in well with this. Since then though I have seen the species much more often in Oslo. There was a small arrival in November 2016, I had a single sighting in November 2017 and then there was a huge invasion in 2019 with the first record on 21 October. Now it looks like we will also have an invasion this winter so the 20 year rule definitely no longer applies and it is easy to speculate that climate change may be affecting food availablity in their usual northerly range causing them to have to move south to find food.

One thing that I have always wondered about though is why they travel such huge differences when they could clearly find food much closer to home. In 2019 and again this year there are huge crops of rowan berries around Oslo but there are also huge crops much further north so they have not needed to fly so far so early. Grosbeaks do not even need berries as shoots on spruce trees are their staple diet and when they came in 2012 and 2016 there were no berries and it was spruce shoots that they ate. In the 2012 invasion the first records were of birds migrating north along the southern coast of Norway so here they had clearly just been flying and flying before hitting the coast and turning around. There must be a PhD in understanding what drives eruptions of birds (unless it has been done already).

 

I wrote yesterday morning that the first reports of Grosbeaks were coming in and I therefore planned the dog walk to an area of forest which has proved popular with Grozzas in years with and without rowan berries. We didn’t have to walk far before a flock of 8 appeared and they then showed exceptionally well feeding low down on berries before flying up into the tops of spruces and eating shoots. When they are in the spruce trees they are incredibly difficult to find especially as they call so infrequently and it is very easy to walk past them. All 8 birds looked to be youngsters.

Today I got up early with the mission of finding them in the Dale and at my first stop at some berry laden trees I found 5 birds which were again all youngsters. I couldn’t find them anywhere else in the Dale and on returning to the original birds a flock of 12 flew into join them which included 2 adult males. 25 birds in total over 2 days with just 2 adult males is a skewed age/sex ratio especially when compared to the invasion in 2019 when there was a much higher ration of adult males. This could suggest that there are slightly different factors driving the invasions. This year there may have been a bumper breeding season combined with little food in the north but in 2019 it looked to be just food that was the driver. The origin of the birds also seems to vary between invasions. Invasions before my time could through other sightings be traced to east in Russia whereas the 2019 invasion looked to have originated in fenno Scandinavia.

look how small the Brambling (bjørkefink) looks

Whooper Swans (sangsvane)

and a Long-tailed Tit (stjertmeis)

Saturday morning

I write this on Saturday morning whilst enjoying a cup of coffee, silence in the house and the smell of fresh pain au chocolat. What I am not doing is watching birds in the fjord from Halvard’s boat (thanks for the invite) or watching the first Pine Grosbeaks (messages coming in from just north east of Oslo). But the day is still young and that dog will need walking somewhere…

The last few days have seen changing weather with lots of fog one day and then glorious sun the next. In the fog on Wednesday I heard a for me, unknown call emanating from Maridalsvannet and later in the day when the fog had lifted I found an adult and juv Red-throated Diver which matches well with the call. It is very late for them to be here and suggests a very late breeding further north.

Yesterday, I spent time in the forest yesterday ahead of some guiding on Monday and had hoped to find the first Grosbeak of the autumn but had to content myself with Hazel Grouse and Pygmy Owl – which did make me very content 😊

The Scaup remains at Østensjøvannet attracting a lot of attention from photographers who have never photographed the species before and it must be the most popular bird on local social media at the moment despite it being very grotty. The Smew seem to have moved on though but a Guillemot amongst the Coots and Mallards was an interesting sight.

male Hazel Grouse (jerpe)

singing in the shade

Pygmy Oowl (spurveugle)

note the Blue Tit (blåmeis) behind it. It was the noise of tits that alerted me to the owl

1cy female Scaup (bergand)

I have always maintained that Scaup do not have white undertail coverts. Looks like I may have been wrong..

a Buzzard (musvåk) in Maridalen - it looks like birds will spend the winter again

an out of place Guillemot (lomvi)

it was calling as they often do

Long-tailed Tit (stjertmeis) which tried to take my attention when I was watching the Hazel Grouse