The weather has really changed over the last few days. Spring
really blossomed on Thursday with southerly winds and such warmth from the sun
that temperatures reached 8C and I saw my first Adder in Maridalen. By Saturday
though we were having blizzards with 20cm of snow and temperatures this morning
were down to -9C in Maridalen.
Birds have seemed to realise that spring isn’t here properly
yet and there have been no significant arrivals of birds. I had hoped that
Thursday would bring some raptors on the southerly winds but will have to wait
a while longer. On Thursday the car was at the garage so as I usually do in
these car free circumstances I took the ferry out to Gressholmen. This gave me
my first Lesser Black-backed Gull and Grey Wagtail of the year plus my first
Ringed Plover and Shelduck for the year in Oslo. With a Reed Bunting at
Hengsenga today I am now on 98 species for the year in Oslo and will surely
reach 100 at my earliest ever date.
In Maridalen Lapwings were absent from 9-14 March with the
overnight frosts making the ground too hard to find food. A single bird did
return on the 15th but the snow quickly saw it on its way again. The
snow covered fields have also meant that the flocks of Yellowhammers, Skylarks
and Snow Buntings have had to temporarily find new snow-free pastures and Maridalen
has been a pretty bird free zone except for a few Whooper Swans and my first
Starling of the year there.
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| my first Adder (hoggorm) of the year in the usual place in Maridalen and quite possibly the same individual I have seen here in previous years. According to those to who know this is an old (7+ years) male |
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| this male Ringed Plover (sandlo) was energetically display flighting over Gressholmen |
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| my first Oslo Shelduck (gravand) of the year |
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| the great Hengsenga flood on Wednesday with a thin layer of ice |
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| Maridalen on Sunday morning - the same fields that had only a few days ago held flocks of Skylarks (sanglerke) and Snow Buntings (snøspurv) |
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