Showing off the patch

Today I had the very pleasant company of English birder Steve around Maridalen and the birds were very cooperative with all of the special birds showing well. Both the Grasshopper Warbler (gresshoppesanger) and River Warbler (elvesanger) were singing strongly mid morning and the River Warbler sang from the top of a bush in perfect light for once but this time the distance was too great for a decent photo but I took one anyway :-)

River Warbler - for once in the open in good light but too distant

An Icterine Warbler also sang strongly but as usual was difficult to see high up in the canopy. After a long wait the Wryneck (vendehals) peered out its hole (there is still no evidence the young have hatched) and after an even longer wait we saw the male Red-backed Shrike (tornskate) taking food to his mate hidden away on the nest. We also watched him flycatching a couple of times. After having heard him sing twice we finally saw a Common Rosefinch (rosenfink) but unfortunately it was this brown first summer male.

Common Rosefinch - it sang making it a 1st summer male

The male Goshawk (hønsehauk) flew over with prey in his talons presumably on his way to the nest and as we left Maridalen a thermalling raptor made me stop the car and once we got our scopes on it we saw we had a fine Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) which soon headed purposefully off north.

All these birds would have made the day in the UK so it was a good showing from Maridalen with a supporting cast of the more usual suspects like Black-throated Diver (storlom), Dipper (fossekal), Green (skog-) and Common Sandpipers (strandsnipe), Whinchat (buskskvett), Pied (svarthvit-) and Spotted Flycatcher (gråfluesnapper).

Slightly worrying was the site of a mink running along the waters edge as this can be a real menace to breeding birds.