OSLO BIRDER: A bit of magic in Maridalen

With the high water levels and blue skies I have not been expecting any waders in Maridalen but once again my predictions have proven to be wrong. Today there was a distinct arrival of waders despite cloudless skies and I believe a combination of a full moon and perhaps favourable winds was enough to cause a lot of waders to make the move north and the ones that were over Maridalen at dawn just decided to land for a rest. I started the day checking the ploughed field where I was hoping for pipits and wagtails with perhaps a Shore Lark but there was nothing, not even a gull! The farmer had only ploughed half the field though and from the still stubble area I heard the unmistakeable sound of a displaying Great Snipe! I have had Great Snipe a few times on spring passage in Maridalen but never in the middle of stubble field. I had my thermal imager with me but on a sunny morning there were far too many warm objects for it to be of any help in finding the bird but I did eventually manage to locate it although it was far from cooperative. This would appear to be the first record in Norway this (late) spring.

I was well chuffed with how the day had started and then when I went down to the lake and found numbers of Greenshank (13) and Wood Sandpiper (17) I realised something was afoot and regretted my decision to not visit Svellet today. I scanned the lake for ducks hoping for scoter and saw there were some Tufties flying around. I walked out to Nestangen to get a better view of the lake and going through a small group of Tufties I saw a red head and grey back and immediately thought that Maridalen’s perhaps most obvious bogey bird, Pochard, had finally turned up. But no, it was not a Pochard but something even more unusual. I briefly considered Redhead before realising that it was in fact a hybrid between Pochard and Tufted. I do rather like hybrids so thought this was really cool and then spent ages trying to adequately digitally document it.

There were 39 Tufted Duck on the lake which is a very respectable total along with 21 Black-throated and 2 Red-throated Divers and a Great Crested Grebe but only 11 Teal indicated a clear out rather than arrival of dabbling ducks.

With the blues skies and at time southerly winds I spent a lot of time peering skywards but did not have a single raptor all day!!!

Here is my eBird checklist.

I don't know whether it is the photographer or the equipment that is to blame but y pictures from today do not do the birds, and my views of them, justice.