C'est la vie

Not every day goes to plan. Today we had decided to go out east hoping to see Bean Geese, have another go at the 2BCs and also with the weather as it is (clear blue skies and plus degrees during the day) maybe some raptors and certainly more early summer migrants.

Well the 2BC were not there and in the valley at Bjørkelangen the flooded fields that on Tuesday had held Bean Geese were now dry and the still extensive (but diminished) floods at Kjelle School were frozen after an overnight frost. This resulted in far fewer birds in the valley and certainly no Beans and hardly any other geese. Skylarks were very obvious and were singing and chasing each other around everywhere but apart from just one Lapwing were the only obvious migrants we saw. The Great Grey Shrike did show but only briefly and Whooper Swan numbers during the day were significantly.

Heading up to the Glomma River and Udenes Church I felt quite sure we would find Bean Geese here at the traditional stop over site but a search of the river and various favoured fields failed to produce them. Where is the big flock this year? Some of the marked Scottish birds are in Sweden but these are the same birds that used a Swedish route last spring and autumn and no birds that have been sighted in previous years in Norway have been sighted in Sweden. Maybe they are still in Denmark but if so then why have they not moved north when others have been in Sweden for a week? I will be checking again next week and will hopefully locate them. With none of the GPS senders still working it has suddenly become harder finding them!