Adult Med Gull!

These northerly winds are terrible. I understand that it is the same in the UK and migration has also stopped up there so birds must be building up somewhere – are we going to get a huge rush when the pressure eventually has to be released? The weather forecast suggests that the winds will change to southerly from 1 May and there will even be rain three days later on Star Wars Day. Something to look forward to at least.

Things have been so dire in Maridalen that I have spent an unhealthy amount of time looking downwards but this has been rewarded with some nice snake encounters with two grass snakes and three adders sunning themselves early this morning. I think I was there too early for any mating but it will all kick off very soon (if it hasn’t already passed me by). I will save my pictures of these for a later occasion.

The dry fields seem to have had a negative effect on the Lapwings in the Dale. There were up to 9 birds earlier in the spring but now I am just noting 2 or 3 and do not know if they have started nesting. The Crane pair is also often in the valley now and I saw them mating yesterday. I take this as a sign that yet again they will not breed (as they should be on a marsh in the forest and not a stubble field) but it may still be early in the season for them. The only new species I have noted in the Dale over the last two days was the first Tufted Duck on the lake (does not breed but is frequent on spring passage) and a pair of Red-throated Divers are now on the lake and were displaying today (although I have previously had a fly over this year).

Whilst watching snakes at 10am today a message came through that an adult Mediterranean Gull was in Frognerkilen – it had been reported there yesterday but I had assumed it was moving through and had hoped it would turn up amongst the gulls in Maridalen who I regularly check with just that species in mind. I quickly bid farewell to the reptiles and made it through the city in under half an hour. There were loads of birds around Frognerkilen both on the water and the fields. The gull showed really well and is my first adult in Norway. It was a small bird so probably a female and had a pale tip to its bill which may be a sign of it being a younger adult? A cracking bird though and one which I expect will become a commoner and commoner sight in the coming years. The gulls would regularly fly up as though they had been spooked and my frequent scans of the skies to find a raptor eventually came up trumps with a male Marsh Harrier very high up that was heading north – another good Oslo bird.

Adult Mediterranean Gull (svartehavsmåke) together with Common Gull (fiskemåke) and Black-headed Gull (hettemåke)

this Marsh Harrier (sivhauk) headed north at great height. Through the bins I thought it was very pale and therefore an old male but the picture shows more detail and it is a young male

not often I have a picture of a Song Thrush (måltrost)

or Redwing (rødvingetrost)

Lapwing (vipe)

with a large worm

mating Cranes (trane)