Valdresflya

Pictures will follow later but today we finally got up onto Valdresflya. Known as one of the best sites in Southern Norway for mountain birds and especially Long-tailed Skua I always look forward to our annual trip here. Today was one of the earliest times we have been here and snow still covered most of the ground and the lakes were still frozen. This and rain meant that there was very little to see. I did have 2 singing Shore Larks, 3 resting Dotterel (great pictures to follow) and heard a Dunlin singing but no ducks, no plovers or other waders and no skuas. When the thaw is so late as this year I suspect that many birds chose other areas to breed which would explain why the numbers of birds we have seen in previous year in mid July has varied considerably. No sign of Lemmings would explain Merlin being the only raptor (Rough-legged Buzzard is normally guaranteed here)and 20 distant Reindeer were the only mammals.