Guiding BoPs

Today I was guiding Lars Petter. The guiding was a birthday present from his good lady and I had a solid wish list to work with which I did pretty well in depleting. I decided to head out east and cover Nordre Øyeren, Aurskog Høland and a bit of Østfold. It was quite an intense day with an early start and I was knackered when I got home so the kids got frozen pizza  for dinner -I did warm it up...;-) 

We are still having overnight frosts and with a lack of rain it was noticeable how brown the fields are and there is no flood water in the valleys. This means that there are few concentrations of birds and that a number of species have not yet arrived in any large numbers. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t see lots of good birds.

Birds of Prey were well represented with 2 Marsh Harriers, 2 Peregrines (including a youngster which nearly flew into us while chasing a Fieldfare), 4 Ospreys, many buzzards, Merlin, Goshawk and Sparrowhawk. Surprisingly I have yet to see a Kestrel this spring and it looks like they are still to arrive in Norway in any numbers.

There were few dabbling ducks but Merkja held an impressive 600 Teal although try as hard as I could I found no American cousin or Garganey. Hellesjøvannet held three Smew including a fine male and a rare spring Scaup.

Waders were numerous with 439 Curlews in Svellet plus Lapwing, Golden Plover, Snipe, Green Sandpiper, Oystercatcher and Little Ringed Plover during the day.

There were no concentrations of passerines in the fields but Bramblings and Redwings were singing nearly everywhere. In total we had 73 species which ain’t bad considering the only Africa migrant was Chiffchaff. Other decent birds were Black Grouse, Red-throated and Black-throated Diver and Crane.

As usual when guiding I took few pictures but the ones I did suggest that something may be up with the camera.

this Merline (dvergfalk) proved difficult to focus on but it was no problem to focus on the Blue Tit (blåmeis) that was mobbing it! 

a bit better focus

adult Peregrine (vandrefalk). This bird was a clear migrant and presumably a bird that breeds in the mountains hence its late arrival

female Scaup (bergand) at Hellesjøvannet 

and three Smew (lappfiskand)