Tag Archives: Migration

Sleepless night counting geese flocks

Not much sleep last night as the year’s biggest migration of pinkfooted geese this year (kortnebbgås) went on from 2230 to 0400! Counting flocks of geese doesn’t put you to sleep, it has the opposite effect and I’m not complaining…altogether 30 flocks passed over in this time (will have missed a few as I dosed off occasionally) with somewhere between 3000 and 6000 birds passing eastwards along the fjord before heading north to their pit stop on agricultural land just north of here!
The bright light isn’t my moth trap, it’s the one owned by the workers electrifying the railway :)

Pinkfeet fly-past

Large fly-past by pinkfeet (kortnebbgjess) yesterday. I noted 9 flocks in total and 6 flocks of in total 900 birds between 14:15 and 15:30. The map showing all reports of geese yesterday shows clearly the migration path first over the Oslo area and then north along the Gudbrandsdal valley to Trondheim along the Trondheimsfjord to the rich pastures near the fjord further north (northernmost dots).

Fieldfare migration

With Covid a long way from being over, I’m wishing I was a bird! We probably won’t be visiting family in the UK this winter and this morning there were some 50 fieldfares (gråtrost) and a few redwings and blackbirds feeding on rowan berries in the garden and above I could witness thousands of thrushes passing the house towards west. On some autumn days thrushes will stream past all day in the same direction, maybe following the fjord. The weather chart shows perfect flying conditions with light north easterly winds between Norway and the UK, so I’m thinking these are bound where I can’t go…



Large Arrival

Following the blizzard like conditions over the last two days the low pressure system moved away eastwards and a high pressure ridge with light winds built up over Norway last night and there was a light drizzle and just above freezing this morning. I sat down at my desk with the fire going and window open and very soon I heard what I had been expecting…redwings (rødvingetrost) started singing and calling just outside the window right on schedule for their mid-April arrival time slot! Then, a bit later I spotted a song thrush (måltrost) foraging, later redwings were foraging on the ground and two dunnocks (jernspurv) also appeared, unusual to see this shy bird, no doubt also newly arrived. There was only bare ground near the fjord this morning, concentrating the birds hungry for some food….

 

3,590 Pinkfeet

One of the highlights of spring for me are the large flocks of pink-footed geese (pinkfeet) or kortnebbgjess in Norwegian passing Malvik on the final stage of their journey from their overwintering grounds in the low countries to their staging post just north of here before the final journey to Svalbard. We heard yesterday that an estimated 15,000 pinkfeet had been observed flying north over Oslofjorden and on up Gudbrandsdalen the broad river valley north from Oslo to Trondheim. However, last night we were told that due to bad weather they had stopped south of the mountains.  I heard a few last night so a few had flown over the mountains….but I was woke at 07:30 as the first flocks started passing and they continued in a steady stream until I had to leave at 12 pm. 
I recorded as many flocks as I could by pictures and videos….and estimate that at least 3,590 birds passed in 22 flocks during the morning…so today was very different to what I’d planned! This is the largest number I’ve recorded here and the main migration is nowadays 1 month earlier than it used to be, one of the most obvious and dramatic signs of climate change here….

Here are all reported pinkfeet (kortnebbgås) observations in Norway the last two days showing that the birds fly along a narrow corridor from Denmark into the Oslo fjord, on up the Gudbransdalen valley and then over the Dovrefjell mountains (few observations) to Trondheimsfjord. The furthest north observations are at the staging post area (farmland):

 

Large pinkfeet migration ongoing

It’s been raining all day here, but there’s been good flying conditions for the geese flying here today from their start point in the Netherlands and Belgium!

This was the radar picture over Norway, so it looks like the birds have had good flying conditions from their overwintering area in the Netherlands and Belgium until just before they reached the Trondheimsfjord where I live (where the band of rain is located)