Julian Bell is on the right side of the country and we had a morning out
in Maridalen today. Weather conditions were very promising with overnight rain,
cloud and fresh southerly winds. Waders had definitely arrived and a message
from Per B who had been there since dawn reported Golden Plovers (heilo) and
Whimbrel (småspove). The fields at Skjerven held Greenshank (gluttsnipe) and
Wood Sandpiper (grønnstilk) and when Julian spotted a snipe in the long grass I
got far too excited. Everything seemed to fit (in my mind) for Great Snipe (dobbeltbekkasin)
except for the fact that we hadn’t seen any of the important ID character..?!?
The bird was in an area where I felt uncomfortable to go without asking the
farmer first which I did and he was more than happy for us to go out and get
closer to the bird. Around the farm we had 6 Wheatear (steinskvett), 2 Whinchat
(buskskvett) and a Yellow Wagtail (gulerle) and walking out towards the bird
there were suddenly 3 Wood Sandpipers and in total 4 snipe! One of the snipe
gave a real impression of being a Great Snipe when it flew up and both the way
it flew up and impression of real size seemed perfect for Great Snipe however
pictures we took showed it to be just a Common Snipe (enkeltbekkasin). This was
yet again a good reminder that jizz and secondary characters can be misleading
and cannot be relied upon if the main ID features are not noted.
At Kirkeby there were a good 15 Wheatears and a couple more Whinchats on
the fields but t was overhead the action was happening. We had four raptors of
four species and it started with a Golden Eagle (kongeørn) that Per picked up
to the east, continued with a Goshawk (hønsehauk) then a Buzzard (musvåk) and
finally a Peregrine (vandrefalk). The Golden Eagle was only the 3rd
or 4th record in Maridalen but three of these have been at this time
of the year in the last few years suggesting a regular if very small passage
over the area. The Peregrine was again of the type that gets confused as Hobby
(lerkefalk): a small 2cy bird (presumably a male) and showed 3 times including
twice in stoops so was clearly hunting around the valley and could well be the
same 2cy bird recorded a couple of times previously this spring.
There was a feel of promise in the air and I ended up shelving my plans of
going to Svellet (where other reports show Greenshank have increased to 280 and
a Knot (polarsnipe) is new in) but things rather fizzled out in Maridalen.
Østfold beckons tomorrow….
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| the days highlight - a young Golden Eagle (kongeørn) probably a 2cy |
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| 2cy male Peregrine |
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| same bird trying to be confused as a Hobby |
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| Common Snipe but we worked a long time with it |
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| Wood Sandpiper (grønnstilk) |
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