He certainly knew how to keep things exciting, with his local flock dwindling to just five birds and him confidently predicting the berries would only last a few more days at the start of the week. We started the day in the dark looking for a Great Grey Owl, which Simon had discovered a few days previously, but to no avail so we moved on to a nearby car park where a pair of Pine Grosbeaks fed happily right above us and gave us a sample of their various calls. We then relocated to another fearless flock next to a petrol station which contained sixteeen birds, with passers by walking right underneath them. Simon had obviously done his homework as at one point, the birds took off, but he knew exactly where they were heading and we soon found them again, all feeding in one tree.
Very pleased with my first and second encounters of these wonderful visitors from the far north, we then headed out of the slushy suburbs of Oslo into a winter wonderland looking for Three-toed Woodpecker, a species I've only ever seen briefly in Finland. The forest was very quiet and the only birds we saw were a group of Parrot Crossbills right at the end of the walk, exhibiting their distinctive behaviour of picking off a spruce cone and flying up to another branch to feed on it. Simon then dropped me back in Oslo where I had a short walk around the botanical gardens and enjoyed watching Brambling, Hawfinch, the very pale, northern race of Nuthatch and masses of Fieldfares before it got dark again all too quickly and it was time to head home.
