Thanks Mark. I have been up Floyen on the funnicular but not Ulriken. I did manage to get a few Hawfinch today and tried to find some white wingers with no luck. Hawfich was a lifer though. I have a few hours tomorrow, so may try and take a bus somewhere to twitch something else. There was a king eider a couple of weeks ago in the area (rare this south) but had been spotted further north again to my dismay by my arrival. I leave early Friday morning so tomorrow is my last chance. I am in trondheim for 3 days next week, but not sure i have much time there either to get any biridng done. We shall see! Thanks E

Hello all, Many thanks for your responses. Unfortunately due to a tight schedule that I'm on while I'm here (primarily on business and not pleasure unfortunately), and the very poor weather in bergen when I have had any time, I have nothing of interest so far. I did try a couple of the local places in question one morning with no luck of any target birds I.e white winged gulls and hawfinch. Tomorrow I have about 3 hours spare in what looks like further poor weather but will try my luck again to pick some stuff up! This trip had made me hungry to get back here asap and get under the skin of the place, but until then I feel I have had an unlucky week in terms of birds! Thanks again Eugene

Thanks for the info Julian. Very sorry to hear about Eddie. I had a horrible feeling when I couldn't find any up to date info regarding his tours and guiding etc. I didn't know him personally other than a five day tour with him, probably about nine or ten years ago. We started off on your patch and worked our way eastwards up on to the Hardangervidda. There were only four of us plus Eddie and we had a great time, staying in some lovely guest houses, enjoying the incredible scenery and seeing some quality birds.

I absolutely loved Norway and used to travel over from Newcastle on the ferry, sometimes with the car. I always read your blog to see what was about in the Bergen area and still do now and again. It's a great read. A pity about the ferry not running any more because having your own car made any holiday much cheaper by not having to hire a car at Norway's extortionate prices! If I'm ever birding in the Bergen area in future, I'll get in touch.

I'm sad to say Eddie passed away "not long" ago, he is greatly missed. I think it was 2015 but before then even though he was still an active birder there was not much in the way of updates on the various pages he ran.

Hi Eugene, Bergen is a wonderful city and a good base for some excellent birding, I'm very envious. In the city there is Nygardsparken (a large park) within walking distance which should hold Siskin, Redpoll etc including a flock of Hawfinch if they are still around. I went there specifically for Hawfinch a few years ago when the ferry was still running to and from Newcastle (sadly no more) and they didn't disappoint with a flock of around forty. The harbour should hold white winged gulls at this time of year.

Have a look at the birding blog Oygarden Birding. I can't seem to get up any contact details off it but the guy birds the string of islands immediately to the west of Bergen. Google Map the village of Tjeldsto and you'll see where I mean. There is a connecting road and you should be able to catch a bus from the city centre. I have been there but was being driven. White tailed Eagle are present plus divers, grebes, sea duck, waders, etc etc.

A Manchester birder, Eddie Chapman went to Norway 25+ years ago and stayed. I have been on a 5 day tour with him but, after a quick search on the net, can't seem to find his tour company. I'll have a look again and report back if I find anything. He lives (or lived) a couple of hours east of Bergen and may still do day guiding. His experience will be invaluable but you may have to pay! You are near the Hardanger Plateau in his neck of the woods (Hardangervidda) which offers superb birding but will be dangerous in winter with the elevation (4000 ft), snow and the possibility of the road being closed at times.

I think it's a question of finding your feet and then venturing further afield. You'll enjoy it!

I have spent the last 2.5 years in Stockholm, where I used the artportalen.se site, built on software created in Norway. Its a system for logging observations of all sorts of insects, animals, plants .... and birds and is very easy to use.

I suggest that you set yourself up with an account on Artsobservasioner! The site is available in English (Language flag at the top right)

https://www.artsobservasjoner.no/

You can start by clicking on the clickable map to select the region that you are in and work from there, you can do historic searches and get the results displayed in all sorts of beautiful ways that are not easilly possible with Birdtrack in the UK. I used it to discover all sorts of great locations around Sweden and Stockholm in particular.

As with all these systems, it does rely upon the users actually entering the details of their sightings.