OSLO BIRDER: Maridalen - wader hotspot!

Maridalsvannet is turning into a wader paradise at the moment. The low water levels at just the right time are proving very attractive and we haven’t even had a good wader day with rain and birds dropping out of the sky although tomorrow’s weather forecast suggests we may not have to wait long.

This weekend there have been 9 species on the lake: Lapwing, Little Ringed Plover, Whimbrel, Snipe, Greenshank, Redshank and Common, Wood and Green Sandpipers. Two pairs of Little Ringed Plovers have established themselves and are excavating nest scrapes although have not laid eggs yet. Four pairs of Lapwings seem to be nesting with 3 nests saved by the farmer and a fourth new nest that he may not have noticed but either way the female seems to have made a new nest on the recently ploughed field. Snipe, Common Sandpiper and Green Sandpiper are all displaying and will breed around the lake whilst the Whimbrel, Greenshank, Redshank and Wood Sandpipers are all migrants.

Tomorrow’s rain is really getting me excited and I hope that we have more rain before the end of the month (although preferably not on 12-15 May when I am away). I hope that we will get Black-tailed Godwit, Temminck’s Stint, Spotted Redshank, Red-necked Phalarope, Great Snipe, Broad-billed Sandpiper, Little Gull and Black Tern but I think I’ll be very happy with a Dunlin.

I visited Nordre Øyeren and the not so mighty Svellet today. Despite water levels being ideal the mudflats are still bone dry and the number of birds just a small fraction of what they have been in previous years. There were more birds than in Maridalen with Greenshank heading the list but there were only 7 species so Maridalen can definitely claim to be better for waders than Svellet right now!