Guiding in a snow storm

I was guiding David from Surrey this morning and it really couldn’t have been a worse day for it. I had been looking at today’s forecast the whole week praying it would change but no the snow and wind that was forecast came and as a result bird activity was low and birding difficult. Never-the-less I tried my hardest and we saw a varied collection of birds and had a good time.

The feeders in Maridalen showed up a few birds and a Red Squirrel and we heard and had many flyover Common Crossbills and a heard only a Crested Tit but the Great Grey Shrike unsurprisingly wasn’t sitting out in the open and a check of his larder showed it to be empty (typically though the shrike was showing when I drove around Maridalen later in the day during a break in the weather…).

At Fornebu we concentrated on ducks on the sea and had Common and Velvet Scoter, Eider and Guillemot along with two flyover Stock Doves. Passerines were mostly keeping themselves hidden but 21 Fieldfares feeding under a crab apple tree were a high count and may have been newly arrived birds regretting their decision to head north.

More guiding tomorrow with Hawkie top of the wish list…

Maridalen during a break in the snow. Most of the time visibility was much worse than this