Blog
Rare bird 🚨 Smew at Østensjøvannet
1. March 2024
This winter Oslo had a rare visitor at one of its lakes, a male smew, and for a while he must have been the most photographed guy in town.
And just like many others I also made the trip to Østensjøvannet a few times to photograph this stunning black and white duck.
Species
Smews (Mergellus albellus, or Lappfiskand in norwegian) are a small type of diving duck, that's quite rare to Norway. According to BirdLife, there are between 35 and 65 breeding pairs. They breed in the arctic and are not common around Oslo at all, so having one stop by the local lake for a few weeks was quite exciting.
Østensjøvannet is a nature reserve located on just a ten minute drive from the city center of Oslo (or fourty minutes when using public transport), where many different types of waterbirds can be found almost all year round.
During winter the majority of the lake was frozen, and only one small patch of water was accessible to the birds, which happened to be right next to one of the bird watching platforms.
With parking (and a bus stopping) right next to the lake, a path that's easy to walk or use a wheelchair on, and a viewing platform with benches, the otherwise rather shy smew was quite accessible to observe at Østensjø.
The shadow of the trees gave the water a rather dark color, almost black, which contrasted quite nicely with the white ice around it, and matched with the plumage of the smew.
I would have loved to photograph him during the golden morning or evening light, but never had the opportunity to visit the lake at the right time for that. So instead, I decided to focus on the contrasts and the fact that the pictures were almost naturally entirely black and white.
Mr. Smew was often observed together with the common goldeneyes, even courting their females.
Hybrids between smews and goldeneyes do occur, and such a hybrid is occasionally observed elsewhere in the greater-Oslo area (Tyrifjorden), but I'm uncertain if the smew at Østensjøvannet got successful with any of the common eyes.
He arrived sometime in February and left in March, probably making his way to the north of the country. I regret not spending even more time at the lake with him before he left, they're truly beautiful birds. But I did end up with a lot of pictures of him, and who knows, maybe he'll stop by again next year?
