OSLO BIRDER: When will my luck turn?

With winds from the South East and lots of rain in the morning today was most certainly going to deliver the goods……for someone else at least.

My thoughts were of lots of grounded waders including Broad-billed Sandpiper (fellmyrløper) and Dotterel (boltit) in Akershus, enormous numbers of hirundines including Red-rumped Swallow (amursvale) with Hobby (lerkefalk) hunting them and a Black Tern (svartterne) or Little Gull (dvergmåke) amongst them.

I only partially scored on my goals with a few waders and a lot of hirundines but if I had gone to the great big dump then I would have scored even better with a White-winged Black Tern (hvitvingesvartterne) being seen there. Just shows I was right predicting something good today it’s just that this year it clearly is not going to be me that finds it.

I started at Kurefjorden where three Temminck’s Stints were keeping 18 Dunlin (myrsnipe), 28 Ringed Plover (sandlo) and 2 Bar-tailed Godwits (lappspove) company but I couldn’t find any Dotterel on the fields. I then drove the rather long way to Hellesjøvannet where I the large numbers of hirundines that I had expected were present but 8 Common Terns (makrellterne) were the only other thing amongst them and certainly nothing rare. The day’s only excitement came as I checked fields for Dotterel (some were seen here on Sunday) and heard my first Quail (vaktel) of the year. It was singing from relatively short grass in the middle of the day but I failed to see it. Continuing past Bjørkelangen I checked more fields for Dotterel and finally found some Golden Plover (heilo) which got me excited but they didn’t have any more colourful company. 20 Cranes (trane) feeding in nearby fields gave me my only photo opportunity of the day. These are most likely non breeding birds and bear witness to the fast growing population in Norway.