Stonechat

The arrival of spring has not been as explosive as I dreamed and those birds with names beginning with S are only slowly appearing in my binoculars. I can add another two species to the list of four I have already mentioned in the form of Stonechat and Shelduck but am struggling to come up with a seventh to make it S Club 7. Of the six I have now seen only three though.

Shelduck was just an oversight when I listed the first migrants but Stonechat was an omission based on it being such a rarity but times are a changing. In Oslo and Bærum (which I include because of Fornebu) this weekend four!! Stonechat were present with two in Oslo and another two on Fornebu. They came in cold, snowy conditions when an insect eater should really struggle to find food but then again they are not an extremely early migrant for nothing and clearly know how to find food in these conditions. I failed to find my own chat at the weekend and also failed in attempts to twitch one after being shown very juicy photos that a photographer had taken and which he was unsure as to the identity of. But yesterday morning I caught up with a female found on Sunday at Fornebu which I had really expected to have moved on overnight as it was a clear night. It showed well as fresh snow fell and often dropped to the ground clearly having seen a food item but I did not see it actually eat anything.

The first spring record of Stonechat in Oslo and Bærum was in 1977 but it was then another 21 years before the next in 1998 and in the next 22 years there were just records in six years. From 2021 though the species has been annual and records are also occurring earlier than before. Four in a year in both 2021 and 2024 is the record so having already reached that number this year when we can get birds until the middle of April is clearly something special. Exactly where these birds are migrating to remains and what subspecies are involved remains a bit of a mystery. The small breeding population on the west coast of Norway are described as hibernans and are very early migrants whereas the subspecies that breeds further south in Europe and that is advancing north in Sweden is rubicola which migrates later. Birds this early in the spring would could be expected to be hibernans but I am not aware of any increase or change in distribution of their population to explain the explosion of records in recent years. If they are rubicola are they just birds overshooting their new breeding areas in southern Sweden? And if so why aren’t they establishing themselves as breeders in Norway and why are they arriving so early?

 

And the third S Club species I have seen in addition to Stock Dove and Stonechat? Starling, with a flock of 9 looked a bit forlorn in a treetop on Bygdøy.

female Stonechat (Svartstrupe)

proof of where it was

here it had flown down onto the snow having seen a food item

I may have found no spring migrants yet in Maridalen but I again saw two different Pygmy Owls on Sunday with this one being at a site where I also had sightings in the late autumn and being the fourth different bird I have seen the last few weeks. It also sang as can be heard in the video

Three Long-tailed Ducks at Fornebu:

And Purple Sandpipers at Huk, Bygdøy taken with the phone:

Tromsø in February rocks!

Our first mid winter trip to Tromsø has been a resounding success. We arrived at the end of Sami Week, an annual celebration of all things Sami, and got to see the Norwegian Championships in both lasso throwing and Reindeer racing. The reindeer racing happened on a snow lined downtown street on a 201m course. It was explained that 201m is the internationally defined distance for the sport but no explanation was given for why. A skier holds on to the reins whilst the animal runs and covers the distance in around 17 seconds. It all looked great fun although the animals didn’t exactly look thrilled whilst being harnessed up. Animal welfare was not mentioned once..

The Northern Lights also put on a show and this is one of the main reasons the City has become such a popular winter tourist destination and the streets were heaving with winter clothed tourists from ever corner of the globe. This tourism results in hotel prices going through the roof and rented accommodation being used for Air BnB rather than for locals or students who need it and is causing quite a lot of resentment among many natives.

I put on a «show» for the 100 or so students in Junior’s 8 storey high student block when whilst making food I slightly burnt some mince causing the smoke alarm to go off and the whole building to be evacuated. The fire brigade arrived within 10 minutes and were very good about it - I even think they were grateful to me for being given something to do on an otherwise boring Sunday evening ☺️

But what about the birds I hear you say. Well, they were tip top super. King Eiders and an adult Iceland Gull topped the bill and all seen whilst walking from Junior’s into town. Passerines are of course going to be in short supply in winter this far north but an abundance of rowan berries resulted in small flocks of Waxwing and and most surprisingly a Redwing which would be an exceptional mid winter sight even in Oslo.

The trusted superzoom and mobile phone resulted in the following documentation of the delights of Tromsø (this is done at the airport and I may come with some better edited photos later):

King Eider (praktærfugl) pair

Adult Iceland Gull (grønnlandsmåke)

Fieldfare (gråtrost)

Redwing (rødvingetrost)

I saw no divers in the field but this Yellow-billed was in Tromsø Museum

Where I also had my best ever «views» of a Gyr Falcon
(Jaktfalk)

According to accepted Norwegian birding wisdom Shags (toppskarv) never perch like this…

Purple Sandpiper (fjæreplytt)

Herons have been roosting in the heronry trees by Junior’s flat all winter and they were present and noisy when we were there

A close male Long-tailed Duck (havelle)

Mid Jan

After 3 very cold days but with only a small amount of snow we then had a day with LOTS of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday whilst temperatures rose to +/- zero. Thursday was cold again although at only -5C was a relative joy to be out in but today, Friday, the forecast is for the mercury to rise over zero and lots of RAIN. Welcome to icy pavements and roads and hell on earth…

This week I have mostly been looking for snipes, rails and owls and succeeding to a good extent. Jack Snipe, Water Rail and Pygmy Owl have shown well, Common Snipe has been seen briefly but a Great Grey Owl in Maridalen has only been heard about via via but if the record is genuine then both myself and a number of others would appear to have been very close to it whilst being oblivious to its presence. Hopefully it is genuine and is refound although I so no evidence of rodents so cannot see that it will hang around one particular area for long.

I have spent a lot of time trying to film Jack Snipe feeding but that has proven very difficult and merits its own post.

A trip to Huk, Bygdøy revealed nothing unexpected except for a female Pintail feeding in the rock pools which rather surprisingly is my first record here. Three different female (but no male) Pintails have been seen in Oslo this winter – one at Østensjøvannet and upto two at Bestumkilen/Vækerø. In the last couple of weeks though only a single bird has been reported at Vækerø so whether the Huk bird was one of the other two or another bird is difficult to say.

Maridalen on Wednesday after all the snow but before the rain

the Pygmy Owl (spruveugle) has become more reliable again. Here it looks as though it is searching the ground for mice but otherwise it clearly had its eyes on birds at the feeding station

one of upto three Water Rails (vannrikse) wintering in Oslo

the open water that attracts Water Rails and snipe also often attracts Robins (rødstrupe) and Wrens

the min cruise ferry from Kiel arriving in Oslo on Thursday morning as seen from Huk. Purple Sandpipers were on the rocks and a few Velvet Scoter and Eider were diving for food. The female Pintail can be seen swimming left

the female Pintail (stjertand) feeding in the rock pools

one of six Purple Sandpipers (fjæreplytt)

the Pygmy Owl in Maridalen on Thursday. It is always easier to find it when it perches on top of a tree. Just after I took the picture it vanished but I then suddenly heard an explosion of noise from a flock of Long-tailed Tits that I had previously not been aware of so I assume it went for one of them

Long-tailed Tit (stjertmeis)

The sound of the small flock. They were still very excited a couple of minutes after they exploded into life

and my continued "hunt" for a video of one of these feeding will get its own post sometime soon

Final birding of 2025

Despite me posting a part 1 of my summary of the year it isn’t over quite yet and I have managed to fit in some birding around festive and family activities. On the 22^nd I guided Emily and Diane from California for a very cold and crisp couple of hours at Huk, Bygdøy. We had a good haul of typical species with Purple Sandpipers headlining.

And today I saw one of the Maridalen Pygmy Owls for the first time in over a month and although I think food is hard for it to find I did see it with rodent in its claws.

We suddenly had a change in the weather just before Christmas with temperatures falling below zero and with no wind ice immediately formed in the bays at Fornebu. We also got the thinnest layer of snow on Christmas Eve so had a white Christmas too.

Maridalsvannet always takes a long time to freeze over but has started freezing over in the bays and there is a chance it will mostly freeze over before the New Year (when in a normal winter it will definitely be frozen) although I suspect it may take a bit longer.

Pygmy Owl (spurveugle) in the Dale

Cormorants (storskarv) at Huk

and Purple Sandpipers (fjæreplytt) same place

Waxwings (sidensvans) are still in the area where I live and a couple joined Fieldfares that were eating wind fallen apples in the garden

Dausjøelva in Maridalen on 27th Dec

and looking over Nesbukta on the 26th with the first ice forming