In the papers

My sightings and photos of the White-beaked Dolphin (kvitnos) attracted the attention of the local newspaper who printed this article that also talks very nicely about your truly.

the article

I took the family down to Drøbak today and we saw Flipper although again he was not in a playful mood so our views were limited to him surfacing but it was nice to share this wonderful creature. There were quite a few people with big lenses down there including a couple out on a boat but it looked like it was very difficult for them to take pictures as he was quite close to the boar and without knowing exactly where he would surface it is very difficult to react in time and get the camera on him before he dives again. It will be interesting to see though if any pictures from today surface on the web.

photographing the dolphin from the boat. As you see the photographers haven't raised their cameras to their eyes as I don't think they were able to react quickly enough when the dolphin breached just metres from them

blowing off some steam

a gorgeous photo taken by oldest daughter

 

Lull before the storm

I am nothing if not a man of habit and with today offering blue skies and relatively wind I headed for the Drøbak area. I searched quite diligently for the Hawk Owl but couldn’t find it and only had the northern most Great Grey Shrike. I met up with Per Buertange who was on a dolphin hunt at Drøbak. He had been there an hour and hadn’t seen Flipper but had found a Purple Sandpiper on an island which I have always checked without success for just this species. Just then a boat headed into view and I picked out Flipper riding the bow wave and I then rushed off to look at the island and year tick a very good Akershus bird. I located two Purple Sands but at a range of 1.9km they were really just a couple of small, dark waders standing on a wave washed rock. Back with Per we then enjoyed Flipper for over an hour at closer range and in better light than I have previously experienced but unfortunately he was not in a playful mood and did not jump at all.

We did witness one very interesting interaction though. I saw something jumping out of the water where Flipper was and in the scope saw that it was a Guillemot that was barrelling out of the water like a penguin. It kept doing this and Flipper would surface just behind. The bird looked seriously stressed and they covered a couple of hundred metres before Flipper moved off and the Guillemot sat and preened on the waters surface. I believe that the dolphin was playing with the Guillemot rather than truly hunting it for food but of course cannot know for sure and did not capture it digitally.

One thing that has surprised me is that despite being in the Drøbak area so often the last week and looking over towards Håøya that I have not seen the White-tailed Eagle pair that breeds here but maybe they are not yet on their breeding territory.

Tomorrow the remains of the storm that hit the East Coast of the States will hit Norway after having crossed the Northern Atlantic. This may turn up some seabirds and with luck an influx of Iceland Gulls so I will be braving the elements on a headland near you tomorrow.

 

This video gives an idea of how frustrating it was trying to take pictures/film Flipper today.

I chanced upon a flock of 40 Bramblings (bjørkefink) today which is a high mid winter count

Two Purple Sands (fjæreplytt) at 1.9km range!

Flipper



here he was quite close but refused to do anything intersting

the forecast winds tomorrow afternoon with hurricane force heading across the North Sea over the Shetland Islands and storm force winds heading up the Oslo Fjord



Pygmy Owl

With rising temperatures fog is a problem and it was lying heavily over Oslo this morning. Thankfully it was a local problem and as I headed out towards Drøbak the blue skies that had been forecast appeared. I was hoping to relive some of Friday’s exciting birds and animals in better light and did quite well on that score although the Hawk Owl was not to be found. I found two of the three overwintering Great Grey Shrikes and today had the northern bird but not the southern bird (the opposite on Friday). Otherwise there was little bird life in these areas.

On the sea at Drøbak there were a few auks including a single Little Auk and the White-beaked Dolphin and two Common Seals were present. The dolphin put on one short display of jumping but otherwise was just swimming slowly around showing only its back. On two occasions it rode the bow wave of boats but was mostly underwater with no spectacular jumping. None the less a mighty experience to watch this animal.

Back in Oslo I put out food in Maridalen and was rewarded by the Great Grey Shrike here and best of all a Pygmy Owl which showed well and tried unsuccessfully to catch a Redpoll whilst I was watching.

Pygmy Owl (spurveugle)

 

 

 

 

 

 

White-beaked Dolphin (kvitnos) Drøbak

the days three Great Grey Shrikes (varsler). Left the bird from the northern Drøbak territory, middle bird from the middle Drøbak territory and on the right the Maridalen bird

a wing drying Cormorant (storskarv) at Drøbak

 

Forty Nine Shades of Grey

I’m still rolling!

The weather started changing today with blue skies replaced by cloud and temperatures above -10C (although not much). The days was windless and I thought that another visit to the Drøbak area might be fruitful with a specific hope of getting better pictures of the White-beaked Dolphin I saw on Tuesday. And boy was today fruitful! The cloud though meant that there was little colour to discern and as you will see this, combined with the creatures that I photographed, explains the title of this post.

Driving out of Oslo I had a Great Grey Shrike by the motorway in the same area I had one on Tuesday so this would appear to be another wintering territory. I was keen to find out whether all three of the territories to the east of Drøbak (and which I’ve previously drawn on a map) were still holding shrikes. I found birds at the two southernmost territories although not at the northernmost. The bird in the middle territory was a lot further to the west than I have seen him before and the southernmost bird was at the northern end of her territory (my use of his/her is completely arbitrary) bordering right up to the middle birds territory. That this areas continues to support shrikes despite the cold and snow is a sure sign of good access to rodents and that then begs the question why aren’t there any Hawk Owls here?

And I soon rebutted that question when I found a Hawk Owl, in Akershus, and in the process experienced a huge flood of euphoria. I was on a high and Hawkie really is a drug! Close by the road (aren’t they always) it was perched high up close to an area favoured by a bird during the invasion winter of 2012/2013. It does have to be said though that Hawk Owls don’t generally do very much except for sit there and occasionally give you a quick and disdainful look and this bird was little different so I didn’t spend too long with it and moved on to the dolphin.

I saw the dolphin straight away and it was closer to land than last time. I found a new place to watch it but by then it had moved further out however I was still well positioned. As on Tuesday it would breach the water every few minutes between 2-5 times before diving again. These breaches would reveal the back and dorsal fin but frustratingly not the head or tail. As each breach lasts only a couple of seconds it was very difficult to get photos. The best tactic was to wait for the first of a new series of breaches and then point the camera at that area and wait for subsequent breaches. This worked fairly well but the autofocus would often try to recalibrate so I found it was best to switch to manual (fixed) focus and just fire off loads of shots. This resulted in quite a few photos but none better than I managed last time. Then a large boat headed past and Flipper went crazy. Instead of patrolling a relatively small area he headed at full speed across the fjord towards the boat and started jumping!! Now we were talking. For some reason he did not go all the way to the boat and ride the bow wave as I had hoped but instead continued to jump in the middle of the fjord and let the boat go by. This continued for about 5 minutes and was the day’s second euphoric experience. Seeing the underside of this beast would make you think it was a different species than the one that had been breaching earlier as it is completely white underneath.

anything on top of a tree is worth looking closer at

definitely worth an even closer look

nicely framed

that look!

of course when I got close then it disdainfully refused to look at me even though it would literally be looking down at me

one of three Great Grey Shrikes (varsler) that I saw today but the only one that I photographed

these three Roe Deer were by Hawkie

The White-beaked Dolphin (kvitnos) jumping. What a kick to watch!

it rushed towards this boat

whereas before this was as a good a view as I got

a big beast

jump sequence - it makes  huge splash

lone Dolphins are normally males. The black circle that can be seen on the belly is I assume where his tackle comes out

shark like

a couple of times he powered across the surface of the water without jumping

the animal is so much striking from below

here with what I take to be a 1st winter Great Black-backed Gull and a Guillemot

White-beaked Dolphin and something else....oh, yes Hawkie!

When Hawk Owls turn up in lowland Southern Norway winters time it is normally because of food shortages in their core areas (more Northerly or at higher elevations) and then the vast majority of birds that are reported are in quite open landscapes (often farmland) and using high vantage points (telegraph poles/trees/road signs). This is not entirely typical habitat though as usually Hawk Owls prefer open woodland. It could therefore be that there are a number of Hawkies that go unnoticed as they are not so kind as to sit high and open on the side of a road. That this might be the case was highlighted after today EXTREMLEY high quality does of Hawkie.

I revisited Linnesstranda near Drammen where I had failed to see a reported bird last Thursday (although I did later that day find me own bird) and where since then everyone and his dog has been overdosing. I knew that the bird was being seen within the woodland here and as I walked in I was looking all around me. After a quick and suddenly very necessary stop to get rid of the morning’s coffee I walked about 10 metres and stopped to look at an area where food had been put out for tits etc. A feeling I was being watched prompted me to look over my shoulder and Hawkie was sitting no more than 3 metres from me also intently looking at the feeding area! Now, I’ve often come close to Hawk Owls but never this low down. There was nothing else to do but take a Hawkie Selfie!!

The bird was clearly attracted to the area due to the birds being fed but it would appear that it is not the birds it is after but rather mice that are also attracted to the food. The birds seem to have accepted that the owl is not a threat as during the hour I was there only one bird bothered mobbing Hawkie. During the hour he unfortunately did very little apart from flying a bit higher up in a neighbouring tree from where he had direct line of sight and flight to the feeding area. I was all set up to take a prize winning photo if he caught something but eventually just as my toes and fingers were starting to burn (it is still around -14C) both my camera batteries gave up the ghost (although recovered once I had warmed them up in the car). No complaining though – it was as usual a most uplifting experience to be so close to Hawkie.

 After this I checked out the Oslo Fjord on both the Buskerud and Akershus sides. There was a lot of mist over the water and if there are some windless days then I expect the fjord to freeze over (it has already done so in sheltered areas). Bird wise a Little Grebe was the highlight but it was mammals that were most exciting with a Common Seal and a dolphin which showed regularly but never jumped to show itself properly. What I did see of it though was enough to show it was a White-beaked Dolphin (kvitnos) which was also photographedwere on New Years Eve and according to a local I spoke to has been seen regularly in the area.

Yesterday I paid another visit to Mjøsa/Minnesund where I found the GN Diver on Friday. Over the weekend Iceland Gull and Slav Grebe were also seen here although the diver was not seen again. I managed to find a single Slav Grebe although viewing conditions were very difficult due to swirling ice mist – there was ice forming on the water in front of my eyes and I expect also Mjøsa to freeze over soon. 

Hawkie Selfie!

Hawk Owl (haukugle)

 

 

this was the first picture I took with the big lens. Uncropped at 500mm. The ISO was at 5000. Whilst I faffed about trying to get a better angle and change the camera settings the bird moved a bit further sway

 

doing something other than sitting still

 

White-beaked Dolphin (kvitnos). My first sighting of this species and it is rarely reported although Wikipedia suggests they are quite common

 

Help - SHARK!

spot the Little Grebe (dvergdykker)

ice mist swirling over the Oslo Fjord

Looking north from the Buskerud side of the Fjord with Oscarsborg on the left

more ice mist this time over Mjøsa yesterday

male Goosanders (laksand) and Tufted Ducks (toppand) at Minnesund yesterday