OSLO BIRDER: LRP in Maridalen

Yesterday, I had my weekly trip to Nordre Øyeren and as usual expectations were high. I knew that water levels are rising by around 20cm a day so had hopes that the muddy edges and therefore the birds would be within telescope range. And indeed they were but there were hardly any birds in Snekkervika and the reason for this is that when the water levels are raised so (unnaturally) quickly then the bone dry mudflats are covered much too quickly and do not have a chance to come to life. Svellet looked more promising and 1600 Teal were feeding but nothing more exciting could be found amongst them. As a sign of how late this spring is there were only 12 Greenshank but we can hopefully look forward to 1-2 weeks of much higher numbers of birds until the mudflats disappear.

Bird of the day was my first Wryneck of the year which sang strongly and showed well. I also had my first Wood Sandpipers flying over calling but failed to get a picture…..

I had hoped to find a Little Ringed Plover somewhere at Nordre Øyeren but failed in this quest so it was very satisfying to find one at Maridalsvannet on the way home. This is only, I think, my 5^th record here but was a bird I felt confident would turn up this year with the low water levels we are experiencing.

I was out early this morning and as always had high hopes. We didn’t have an overnight frost, there was no wind to speak of and it was nice and sunny. But were there any new birds or sign of migration? No. The LRP was still present but no new waders and not a single raptor recorded although I did clockup 71 species.

Little Ringed Plover (dverglo)

male Redstart (rødstjert) in Maridalen this morning

female Ring Ouzel (ringtrost) and male Wheateat (steinskvett)

my first Wryneck (vendehals) of the year. Interestingly the others who were at the same spot as me when the bird was singing strongly just behind us recorded this single Wryneck as two Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers..

Black-throated Divers (storlom) on Maridalsvannet. This morning there were 6 Black-throated and 5 Red-throated and lots of noise when both species displayed