This weekend was spent north of the Arctic Circle in Bodø. It was quite wintery up there with strong, cold winds and a snow shower but spring has also arrived and a short birding trip gave me a number of ducks and waders concentrated on the areas where the ice and snow had melted.

Around Oslo there was rain on Sunday morning and as is to be expected it resulted in lots of waders. Halvard had a record in Maridalen with over 108 waders of 8 species and at Svellet an enormous 100 Ruff dropped briefly in.

Predictably there was less to see today in the sunshine but Svellet still had over 550 waders to offer with 350 Greenshank, 200 Wood Sandpipers, 7 Ruff, 6 Redshank, 2 Dunlin, 1 Spotted Redshank and a Whimbrel. It was very difficult viewing conditions with a strong, cold northerly wind blowing up sand and shaking the tripod and the sun causing heat haze so who know what I missed. Nearby Merkja held two male Garganey.

Maridalen gave me a total of 10 waders of 4 species so not even a shadow of yesterday and a late Ring Ouzel was the best bird.

Wood Sandpiper (grønnstilk) and Greenshank (gluttsnipe) migration is building up. Seen alone they can sometimes be confused with each other but side by side the size difference is enormous 

Little Ringed Plover (dverglo)

Wood Sandpiper (grønnstilk) 

waders on Svellet - loooong range

Svellet from the plane yesterday. The water depth in the wet area can only be 1cm or so. Note the river on the right hands side which is still running in a deep channel through the mud.

female Pied Flycatcher (svarthvitfluesnapper)

same bird. "A study in brown"

Tawny Owl (kattugle) in Maridalen 

2 male Garganey (knekkand) and a male Teal (krikkand)

another picture from the plane yesterday showing the favoured area for the Taiga Bean Geese along the Glomma River

Curlew (storspove) close to Bodø - perhaps one of the hundreds of birds on Svellet a couple of weeks ago (there were none today)

disturbed by a passing tractor

another Curlew

a rare bird in the north. Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (dvergspett). A female left and male right. Both birds were drumming close to each other 

Meadow Pipit (heipiplerke)

Vatnvatnet lake close to Bodø. Still frozen despite being only just above sea level

the few areas of open water at Vatnvatnet held lots of birds. Here are Whooper Swan, Greylg, Tufted and Slavonian Grebe

I had Slavonian Grebes at four localities around Bodø and the species seems to still breed here in good numbers