OSLO BIRDER: Great Snipe

Yesterday felt like a good day to check out Svellet and Årnestangen. The unfavourable cold northerly winds continue but it is the middle of May and water levels are still low so there should be lots of birds shouldn’t there? Well there aren’t. Clearly a lot of waders are yet to arrive in Norway but the conditions at Svellet are also clearly not good this year. I think that the mud was dry for far too long and that there just isn’t any life (and therefore food for the waders) in it this year. Today there was still a large area of (dry) mud and lots of shallow water but there wasn’t a single wader to be seen!

I walked out to the tip of Årnestangen where there was lots of dry sand but just a handful of waders to be seen: 1 Dunlin, 2 Ringed Plover, 2 Wood Sands, 4 Redshank, 5 Greenshank & 6 Common Sands. I was really hoping for Temminck Stint but will hopefully have a better chance next week. Raptors were nearly non existent but I did have a few passerines including my first Garden and Icterine Warblers.

The highlight came right at the end of the walk when I was nearly back at the car and heard a displaying Great Snipe from a grassy field. In my experience they only “sing” in the middle of the day if different birds encounter each other. Sure enough scanning the grass revealed three different heads sticking up!! They were pretty close but were able to disappear very easily in the short grass. Great Snipe on migration is always fun and especially to hear them displaying. We are going to Beitostølen for a long weekend in two weeks but with there still being so much snow in the mountains I may be too early to see them lekking so it was good to get a dose now.

At home in the afternoon I checked eBird and saw that a Black Redstart had been seen in Maridalen. I took the Beast for his post dinner walk there and saw the bird which is only the third record for the Dale and a late record for a migrant (given they are already breeding in the city). I also had another close encounter with a Tawny Owl.

I also saw a Beaver today in the early stages of the construction of a new lodge. It had excavated a hole into a muddy bank and was starting to cover up the hole with sticks. It was a very confiding animal and did not seem bothered by my presence.