Tag Archives: redwing

Thrush invasion

Unusually large numbers of thrushes, mainly fieldfare (gråtrost), redwings (rødvingetrost) and a few blackbirds (svarttrost) in the garden at the moment, mainly on the rowans (wild and planted for the birds) and apples (need to harvest earlier than normal this year).
This year is a bumper year for rowans near the fjord, but poor a little inland due probably to frosts which didn’t affect us! Late frost at the time of fruit flowering iis very unusual where I am near the fjord (due to a combination of warmth from the fjord and the fact that there isn’t night at this time!). This has concentrated thrushes near the fjord where the food is!

Thrush invasion

  1. Blackbird on apples

2. Redwing and fieldfares on rowan

3. Fieldfare on rowan (this tree was more or less stripped of berries during the day)

Rowans and thrushes

Large flocks of noisy (in the positive sense) thrushes in the garden this morning. A flock of a 100 or so fieldfares (gråtrost) and a few redwings (rødvingetrost), song heard again today, were feeding on rowan berries, most of the birds lifting at the end of this video. At the same time there was visible migration happening. I counted a continuous stream of some 200 birds in 10 minutes moving westwards! A few waxwings (sidensvans) have also arrived.  Yes, rowans are a must have in the garden although I don’t use them much myself.

Autumn song

Cool autumn weather stimulates several species of bird to sing in autumn, giving a feeling that spring is in the air for us as well! This morning it was about +3C and with a thick woolly jumper I ate breakfast in the garden and I was sung to first by a wren (gjerdesmett) and then a large group of noisy thrushes landed, mostly fieldfares (gråtrost), but a few Eurasian redwings (rødvingetrost) were also present and at least one can be heard singing in this clip!

Redwing song

A distant redwing (rødvingetrost) in full song today (high volume required)!

I remember whilst still living in Scotland hoping to hear redwing singing in June in North West Scotland on a summer cycle ride around the coast of Scotland. They are red listed in the UK because of the small breeding population, but just over the North Sea here in Norway they are everywhere. Scottish breeding seems to be declining (climate change?), less common now than when I was there!

My new “job” and office: a dream come true!!

I always dreamed of working in a botanical garden and somehow my wish has come true only 7 months after retiring from job as an ocean wave climatologist!
Even better, I can come and go as I wish (more or less)…I now have an office where I will be able to document and tend (in summer) my onion garden, as visiting researcher :)
WOW!
…and the staff are lovely people too :)
090118: Wren foraging and joined by a second bird120118:  It’s quite a few years I’ve seen two-barred crossbill (båndkorsnebb), but then I’ve never deliberately sought them out at Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim which, because of its collection of conifers, is one of the best places to see this species, the less common of the 3 crossbills here…only one female with a single common or parrot crossbill…
 090118: Wrens (gjerdesmett):

Spring choir including Icterine Warbler

On the way to work this morning my first singing Icterine warbler / gulsanger of 2016 at Leangenbukta. The warbler is heard at the beginning with a chaffinch/ bokfink and is then swamped by a singing redwing / rødvingetrost with a willow warbler/løvsanger and blackcap /munk in the mix too.