OSLO BIRDER: May 1st

May 1^st is a bank holiday I Norway and has always been a day I look forward to because it usually delivers on the bird front. It has not been unusual that there has still been some ice on Maridalsvannet at this date but this year ice disappeared many weeks ago. The weather forecast had looked promising for a long time with overnight rain forecast however yesterday was such a quiet day and the rain was due to start so early in the night that by yesterday evening my expectation were very low. I was still out in the Dale by 6am but it was cold (only 2C) and there was snow on the ground and after half an hour of not seeing anything I decamped to Norde Øyeren (where I had yesterday seen my first Whimbrel and a Hen Harrier yesterday). Svellet and Snekkervika are looking even better but the birds have yet to arrive in any numbers: I did have ca.150 waders today though with 74 Greenshank dominating (although I see that by the afternoon numbers had increase at least three-fold). A singing Lesser Whitethroat was a year tick.

A message from Halvard (who had not lost faith in the Dale) that there were Golden Plovers in Maridalen made me return there on my way home. It was now raining even more than earlier on (despite the forecast saying it should have stopped). There were clearly more birds than earlier with thrushes now on the fields and waders in the air. I ended up having a minimum of 27 Golden Plovers and 17 Greenshank although Halvard had noted over 50 Greenshank. There were also some insect eating passerines on the fields now with 5 Wheatear, 1 Whinchat and very surprisingly a female Pied Flycatcher looking for food on a ploughed field (yesterday I had seen a Willow Warbler doing the same so food is clearly difficult to find.

As I left Maridalen at 10.15 to go and get some breakfast I met Anders who was cycling in (having sensibly waited until the worst of the rain was over). Not long later he sent me a message that he had found a male Lapland Bunting which was one of the species I had hoped to find. Around an hour later I was back there with Mrs O.B and the Beast. The Bunting had unfortunately done a bunk in the meantime but my first, and an early, Hobby of the year was a nice compensation and I also managed a photo (of sorts) which makes it the first documented Hobby of the year in Norway (this species is notoriously misidentified and nearly no early records are ever documented…). The only other interesting bird we had (on an otherwise very pleasant walk) was a male Three-toed Woodpecker in an unexpected locality by farmland (this species seems to be everywhere this year).