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by Elliotte Rusty Harold.
Original Post: #384 and #385 in Oslo
Feed Title: Mokka mit Schlag
Feed URL: http://www.elharo.com/blog/feed/atom/?
Feed Description: Ranting and Raving
One nice thing about going to far-away places like Scandinavia is that you don’t have to get up at 5:00 in the morning and drive to faraway swamps and garbage dumps to find life birds. Yesterday I found two right in the middle of town, one right outside the train station.
Beth and I arrived at the hotel a little before 4:00 P.M. local time and went on a short walk down to Akershus Festning and the harbor area. I thought we might be able to find some Common Gulls, but all the gulls we saw were Herrings. (Possibly one day the European and American Herring Gulls will be split into separate species, but until that happens I can’t count this one.) We saw a beautiful Magpie in a small park, Grev Wedels plass, and one ladybird beetle. Oh yes: lots and lots of Rock Pigeons. Nothing to blog about though.
Then as we were walking home through the fortress I hear a weird cawing. I looked up and quickly spotted, first with my naked eyes and then with my binoculars, an unmistakable Hooded Crow! I’ve looked for these in other European countries before, but have always been too far South, and only seen Carrion Crows. (They used to be considered different subspecies, but were recently split so, unlike the European Herring Gull, I can count this one.) It was only a quick look, but the bird’s unmistakable as this photo I got of another individual today shows, so I was confident in the ID.
Now any day you get a life bird is a good day, especially in the middle of a city, and we were almost back to the hotel; but that was not the last bird for the day.
Right outside the fountain near the hotel I spotted two little gray birds with white outer tail feathers and a small, dingy black bib. Now any small bird feeding on pavement near the train station, your immediate thought is House Sparrow, but these were clearly not House Sparrows. They looked like a cross between a Gray Catbird and a Northern Mockingbird, with maybe a bit of Tit thrown in for size. However they were clearly none of those. Then one began vigorously pumping its tail giving away at least half the ID. “Wagtail!” I shouted.
I had to go back to the hotel and check my Collins European field guide to complete the ID though, since In really don’t know the wagtails. I considered two possibilities, Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) and White Wagtail (Motacilla Alba). However:
They only really wagged their tails, not the entire hind part of their bodies.
The black bib was apparent on at least one of the individuals, and is visible in the photographs.
They were feeding in the middle of a busy urban area, much more likely for a White Wagtail than a Gray Wagtail.
Neither bird showed any hint of yellow, which you’d expect to see on the Gray Wagtail.
All of this says White Wagtail, not Gray Wagtail. The white outer tailfeathers were prominent and do suggest Gray Wagtail. However the White Wagtail can have those too, so unless some expert looks at my pictures and tells me, “No, that’s a Citrine Wagtail!” I’m pretty confident in this ID. not quite as absolutely certain as I am with the Hooded Crow, but confident enough to add it to my life list.
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