Category: Birding

I caught a Herring Gull
Monday was my first day back in work after a three-week vacation. Luckily for me, it was quite an easy day and my time in work was largely uneventful.

The same couldn’t be said about the trip home.

Since it was a nice, sunny day, I decided to walk home. It’s maybe a 45 minutes walk. I got no further than the new central library, less than 10 mins away from the office, when my plans changed.

I passed the library and reached the new stretch of water that has been carved out of the ground in front of the library. Or, as I like to call it – since it’s almost always occupied by our feathered friends wetting their feathers – “the new seagull swimming pool”.

There were two men sat on a bench chatting and in front of them was a herring gull (Larus argentatus) hobbling around and failing to use one leg properly.

Since I have a history of helping seagulls, I jumped into action. I went over to the bird to check it out. It was initially as curious in me as I was about it, but I needed to find some food to keep it’s attention.

I asked some girls nearby for the leftover crumbs from their pastries and lured the bird in, close enough to grab hold of it and catch it.

A big and strong bird like this did not appreciate a human touch. It instantly started squawking, attempting to flap it’s wings, and darting it’s head about to bite and peck me.

Onlookers were confused about seeing a man catch a seagull. No doubt very curious as to what I planned to do with it. My immediate next step was to find a box to transport it home in. I slipped the bird under my arm and walked over to a nearby cafe to ask the staff to find one.

“I’ll get you something for your face, too”, the lady said. “What’s wrong with my face?!”, I asked, surprised. “It’s bleeding”, she told me.

It turns out, as well as managing to peck my arm a few times, the bird got my face once too. Nothing too serious – just a scratch – but enough to draw blood.

So, now I had a bird in a box and had cleansed the few wounds with anti-bacterial cleansers, which are now readily available everywhere as Oslo settles into life post-COVID-19. What next?

I sat on the steps of the train station and called some local veterinary practices recommended by the national bird activist charity FugleAdvokatene. Unfortunately, at the end of the day on Monday, everyone was either too busy or closed. And so the seagull was coming home with me until the next day.

A store room in my apartment block became the overnight accommodation for the bird. Come Tuesday, the following day, I called around the veterinary practices once more and Dyrlege Elisabeth Blom was able to make time to see the seagull.

And that’s where we got these two cool x-ray scans:
- $An x-ray of a herring gull leg with a fracture / broken leg$
The second x-ray clearly indicates that the bird has a fractured bone in it’s leg. However, it wasn’t a fresh break and so has already started to heel. With a break that has already started to heel, there isn’t much you can do with it.

And so, with that information, it seemed the best thing to do was just return the bird back to where I had found it.

The bird went back inside the box, I hopped on the bus and headed downtown to the same spot I caught it from – the new seagull swimming pool.

Opening a box and pulling out a bird was apparently just as shocking to people passing by as me catching a bird and putting it in a box. When I released it, the gull swam to the middle of the water and enjoyed cleaning itself of the human touch.

It looked happy enough, and I was happy that I had it checked out. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to do. But fortunately, it will live to see another day. And hopefully another 30 years.

Did you know Herring Gull can live that long?

The seagulls need humans to be friendly to them right now. Especially since there seems be a bunch of Norwegians who hate them enough to glue them to the ground.

Did you know they are also considered an endangered species?
5 August 2020
An update on Otto the seagull
It doesn’t seem that long ago since I took in a baby seagull and started to feed it every day. Three times a day. And mop the basement floor twice daily.

Taking in the baby bird, which my wife named Otto, required a good amount of dedication to ensure the basement didn’t smell like a full-time chicken coup and keeping the birdy happy and healthy with a diet of tinned fish (mackerel and sardines were a favoured choice), the occasional dose of cat food, clean water to drink and bathe in, and the tossing of a cat toy for entertainment.
It turned out that throwing the ball was fun for the seagull. There was so much excitement to be had that it started to learn to fly this way – flapping it’s wings to chase the ball that had been tossed across the room.

Otto wouldn’t play fetch and bring the ball back, but almost. It would chase down the ball, pick it up using it’s beak, then run around the basement with it before dropping it to the floor again.

Before vs After

In the two weeks we had the seagull, it grew fast. When we first found Otto, I estimate it was aged 3-4 weeks old (pictured below, on the left). At this stage, the bird could not fly and it had fluffy, spotted feathering on the back of it’s head.

When it came for Otto to depart, it was around 5-6 weeks old (pictured below, on the right). Clearly a defined figure, standing a lot taller than it previously was – with fewer scruffy head feathers and the ability to flap around competently (but not fully fly).

In the time we had the bird in the basement, it had not made a sound. Even the few days we looked after it outside, it made no noise. Ine and I had started to wonder if this was normal – or whether we had a mute bird on our hands.

During the bird’s stay, I’d made a point to not try to hold or handle the bird. This meant between grabbing the bird to put it in the basement and grabbing the bird for the grande release event, I’d not once attempted to reach for the bird. And when I did, it let out a loud and terrified squawking sound.

I was happy to know it wasn’t mute… and almost happier that it hadn’t found his voice mid-way through it’s stay.

Releasing a captive seagull

Once you have spent every day for two weeks feeding and playing with a baby seagull, you can get a good impression of whether it’s the right time to release it.

Otto got packaged up in a cardboard box and we booked a taxi to take us to Akershus Fortress in Oslo. The fortress is situated alongside Oslo’s harbour and has a selection of elevated open grass plains with relatively few people for a downtown spot.

I was keen to not release Otto back into my own garden in case it decided to stick around, or keep returning for food. And the fortress seemed like a good choice; a 15 minute drive from my home, where there were no cars zooming by in the event that Otto still could not fly, but close to the harbour – a natural habitat for seagulls and plenty of tourists dropping scraps of food.
As the seagull grows, they quickly become independent. And you could see that with Otto. Although it hadn’t flown – rather just flapped around the basement – I was pretty sure it was the right time to let it go.

Here is a video of Otto being released from the box and into the fortress grounds:

After releasing Otto, we stood and watched for a while. It wasn’t long before Otto attempted to fly – but the first attempt was similar to what I had previously seen in the basement; a hop from the ground and a flap of the wings. Not so successful, but encouraging.

It was on the second attempt that Otto took to the skies. After a little run up, Otto lifted off and circled the fortress grounds, getting used to flying before returning to the grassy area from where it took off.

This is Otto‘s first flight:

It was a happy moment and couldn’t have gone better. From initially taking Otto in and saving the bird from being attacked by the neighbourhood cats, to releasing the bird back into the wild – it all went as planned.

As animal and bird welfare organisations recommend; if you find a baby bird that has fallen from the nest – the best thing to do, in most cases, is to leave it for the parents to find.

For Otto, this wasn’t going to work and I’m happy we saved him. I’m elated that it was a success; that we released him and got to see him fly.
23 September 2019
I own a seagull.
This weekend, Ine looked out the apartment window to see the neighbour’s cat harassing a baby seagull – chasing it up and down the path, backing it into a corner. It looked terrified.

I went out and shooed away the cat and the bird ran out to the front of the house and into the road. So, I scooped it up before any cars hit it and popped him in my basement for safe-keeping from the cats and cars.

When you find a bird, you aren’t really meant to take them in. Whilst it is a myth that once you have touched a bird the parents will reject it, you are meant to leave them where they are for the parents to find and protect.

The intention was to put the bird back when the neighbour’s cats – yes, multiple – weren’t around. But they always were. So we kept it in the basement overnight.
During the day we have been putting the bird back outside and spends the day in the garden whilst we go to work. We’ve seen two seagulls circle overhead as we observe from our apartment, but they never come down to feed.

The little bird flaps its tiny wings sometimes, but is way too young to fly and last night came to our front door, looking a little terrified, to spend the evening in the basement.

So, I guess now Ine and I are parents of a seagull. Named Otto.

We’ll continue to feed the bird a diet of fish, berries, and cat food. Come nightfall, we will pop it in the basement if it’s around the garden and bring it back out during the daytime. And hopefully the little birdy will make it’s new mamma and daddy proud by learning to become independent and fly away soon.
27 August 2019
Birding at Østensjøvannet
When I’m not staring at a computer screen, I like to stare at other things. Whether it’s gazing out of the window into the garden, or across a pond – I love to watch birds.

Despite having lived in Oslo for quite a few years, it was only this past Autumn that I made my way to Østensjøvannet – a freshwater lake outside of the city.
Østensjøvannet is home to one of the richest population of ducks and birds in Norway. Surprising, considering the immediate surroundings have a strange suburbia vibe. The area has been “developed” into something that feels more like a man-made nature reserve as opposed to a natural occurrence.

As we strolled around the outside of the lake, I snapped some photos of the birds we saw. The most visible birds were all waterfowl, but we also encountered a woodpecker too.
This Spring, I aim to return to Østensjøvannet on a more regular basis – armed with some binoculars and a keen eye. Records show sightings of over 200 different species of birds in the area. Until I return, I can share photos that I took on this outing.

Do you like bird watching? What are your favourite birds?
11 February 2019