44 Cranes in the Dale

On Saturday night I took a trip into Maridalen with my thermal imager hoping to find hunting owls of the eared kind. My optimism was based on the fact that Kestrels have been hanging around and as the snow has melted I have seen lots of tunnels in the grass left by voles. I therefore concluded that these areas which attracted vole eating BOPS by day may also attract the night eating varieties. Well, I found no owls but both Woodcock and Common Snipe were on the fields probing away and there was also activity from both Teal and Mallard which seem to just loaf around on the edge of the ice during the day but clearly fly out to the fields to feed at night.

On the ice I could see that a group of large birds was roosting but the distance was such that I could not ascertain what they were except for that they were very large. Their identity became clear the next morning though when an enormous flock of 44 Cranes were feeding on the field at Skjerven. This smashes previous counts and they stayed the whole day and were marvelled at by many. At the other end of the size spectrum a Lapland Bunting played hide and seek in the stubble fields.

Today felt like the first day with temperatures rising to +15C (wasn’t it just a month ago when they were -15C?) and I thought this might result in a bonanza of migrating raptors. That was not the case but I did see my first Rough-legged Buzzard of the year flying high over towards the west. Perhaps not surprising given the sunshine and heat was an emergence of butterflies with 5 different species showing themselves off (probably the complete haul of species that over winter as adults)  Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock, Brimstone, Comma and Camberwell Beauty.

Cranes (trane) in Maridalen - part of a flock of 44. The farmer failed to harvest a small area of the field last autumn and this had been very popular with Whooper Swans, geese, Mallard and now these Cranes

you can see how the lake is still frozen

with just a small area of open water where the river enters which attracts ducks

them roosting in the thermal imager

a just about recognisable documentation of the Lapland Bunting (lappspurv) which is a more or less annual visitor to Maridalen in April as it heads to its breeding grounds in the mountains further north