Spring migration steps up a gear

The small amount of rain that fell yesterday, southerly winds and a night without frost were clearly what was needed to get migration going. This morning in Maridalen felt good with many hundred Redwing moving quickly from east to west in small flocks. There was also lot of song from them as they paused in the trees. There were some Mistle Thrushes, Song Thrushes and Fieldfares with them but no large flocks feeding on the fields unfortunately. The first field has been ploughed in Maridalen but this hadn’t attracted anything yet. I had a couple of White Wagtails and Meadow Pipits flying over but we will have to have a few more warm days and hopefully some more rain before we get large numbers of these and other insect eating species.

All the geese from yesterday had left the lake and continued their northerly migration but the first large concentration of gulls was on the lake and their calls definitely give a spring feeling.

With it being sunny and the wind from the south I really hoped for some raptor migration but had only singles of Peregrine, Common Buzzard and Sparrowhawk in the morning and nothing at all in the afternoon when the girls got walked. We should have been staying in a nice hotel in Trysil this week and going downhill skiing but everything is now closed due to Corona so walks close to home with something nice to eat will be the new easter entertainment.

I did have two new species for the year in the form of Chiffchaff and Common Snipe.

scarcest bird of the day was this adult Peregrine (vandrefalk) that was hunting Redwings

I don't think I have seen a perched Peregrine in Maridalen before. The species does not breed in the area yet but with a growing population it is not inconceivable that will establish themselves in the future

this large female Sparrowhawk (spurvehauk) caused me some ID problems and I had initally thought it was a male Goshawk

Long.-tailed Tits (stjertmeis) seem to be common probably as a result of good winter survivial 

spiders are clearly active now

the first Chiffchaff (gransanger) of the year deserves a photo and all the main ID features are clearly visible... #recordshotmyarse

a Canada Goose... when I take pictures of black listed species then it is a sign there was little else to point the camera at