Oppland Guiding- Great Snipe & Dotterel

On Friday and Saturday I was on another marathon guiding session taking in the Oslo area and Oppland. Lekking Great Snipe and Dotterel were the main targets for the delightful Trent and Meta from Austin, Texas but we found a lot of other good birds on the way. Sleep was again a precious commodity with the Great Snipes being a nocturnal bird and us then finding out that the road over the mountain would be closed at 1030 due to a marathon so we had to have had an early start to ensure we could get the Dotterel and then get out of the area again!

So what did we see? Of course we succeeded with the two main targets although rain and fog did their best to make it difficult. We also had Greenish Warbler, Thrush Nightingale, Goshawk, Rough-legged Buzzard, Tawny Owl, Icterine Warbler, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Wryneck, Woodcock, Willow Grouse, Common Rosefinch, nesting Cranes and Whooper Swans just metres from each other, Lesser Redpoll, Shore Lark and Long-tailed Skua! Pretty good, I would say :-)

. We had 4 Dotterel including a bird very close, a distant Long-tailed Skua, singing Shore Larks.

As usual when guiding my camera rarely came out but I did put get a few shots and some video:

Dotterel (boltit). We had 4 Dotterel including this very close bird. There was also a distant Long-tailed Skua, singing Shore Larks, Dunlin, Ringed Plover and Golden Plover plus good numbers of Wheatear on the mountain plateau

Great Snipe (dobbeltbekkasin). The Great Snipe lek was only just getting going when we left at 11pm after the rain and fog got the better of us but three males were displaying and fighting and there  were at least a couple more silent birds on the lek

Greenish Warbler (østsanger). We had tried unsuccesfully for this bird at the beginning of the trip on Friday but in the end bagged it as the least bird on Saturday

Valdresflya with relatively little snow this year

looking east over Vinstre lake taken at 0746

and again at 0909 - stunning scenery

Whooper Swans (sangsvane) and Cranes surprisingly nesting side by side. A chick had just hatched in the Crane nest and the adult were pecking at the other egg as though trying to help things on their way