The last week has been spent in Mallorca on a family holiday
and not birding during primetime in Norway which means that it was not me but
rather Håvard Eggen who discovered a second for Norway (and a very rare WP
bird) in the form of a Baltimore Oriole on, yes you’ve guessed it Værøy! It
goes to show that timing and weather mean everything with island birding in the
autumn – the obvious solution would be to move there..
Back in Oslo today I took Oslo Birder Jr on a cycle ride to
Maridalen where we twitched the valleys only second ever Shovelers and best of
all had a Pygmy Owl. I heard a bunch of very irritated passerines and knew they
were mobbing an owl. We walked up to them and stood under the tree where all
the commotion was going on. I was thinking Tawny Owl and was therefore looking
for something big and it too me a looong time to notice the tiny yellow eyed
predator sitting just 5 metres above me on a small branch. I managed two poor
photos before it flew off with a Brambling nipping at its tail.
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| this Pygmy Owl was perched very close in good light but unfortunately it flew off right after I got this picture. It didn't help that I was desperately trying to get Jr onto the bird |
Our week in Mallorca involved little birding despite us
staying in a hotel on the edge of the fantastic S’Albufeira wetland nature
reserve. I birded very little and had no ‘scope and only took the old 70-300mm
lens. There was a small hide overlooking a pool only 5 minutes walk from the
hotel so I did of course visit that every day J
Best record was a flock of 32 Marbled Teal which I think
originate from reintroduced birds as do the couple of Purple Gallinules I saw.
In addition there were Black-winged Stilts, Flamingo, Audoin’s Gulls, Marsh
Harrier, Booted Eagle, Stonechat, Fan-tailed, Cetti’s and Sardinian Warblers,
Firecrest, Serin, Eleanora’s Falcon, Stone Curlew, Kingfisher plus plus so not
too bad for a non-birding trip.
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| the smartest of the large gulls - Audouin's Gull (middelhavsmåke) |
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| Black-winged Stilts (stylteløper) |
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| a distant flock of egrets and a couple of Eleanora's Falcons against the distant mountains |
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| Fan-tailed Warbler/Zitting Cisticola (cistussanger) |
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| Two firecrests (rødtoppfuglekonge) - can you spot them? |
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| young Flamingo |
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| aliens |
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| Alien sex |
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| Kingfisher (isfugl) |
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| Little Egrets (silkehegre) in the rain |
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| Marbled Teal (marmorand) with Mallards |
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| flock of Marbled Teal and Mallards |
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| same flock in the rain |
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| Marsh Harriers (sivhauk) were common |
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| Purple Gallinule/Swamphen (sultanhøne) |
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| using its feet to hold the reeds it eats |
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| Speckled Wood butterflies look different here |
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| Stone Curlew (triel |
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| male Stonechat (svartstrupe) |
