A great April day

 Yesterday was one of those April days you hope for but only rarely happen. It was an extremely birdy day adn one that kept on giving although once again my hope for migrating raptors was not fulfilled but this must just mean they are building up somewhere to the south and will soon rush through (ever hopeful).

The day started with low cloud although there was a wall of fog north of Maridalen that proved to be very fortuitous for me at least. The cloud started breaking up from 11am and in the afternoon it was sunny and all this time there was a southerly wind blowing.

Geese were going through from the get go with there being flocks of both Pink-feet and Greylags.  The Greylags generally flew in smaller flocks and at a lower altitude. The wall of fog caused many flocks to turn around at times the sky was full of birds with flocks going in al directions and after a while many flocks began to land on the ice of the lake. I estimated 3500 Pink feet in total during the day and 750 Greylags. 19 Barnacles were the only interesting geese I picked out which was a bit of a let down.

Even though there was no raptor passage there were some raptors to see with a 3cy White-tailed Eagle giving a very close fly by. This is my fifth sighting of the species in the Dale in less that 3 weeks and appears to be the fourth different bird which is proof of the rapidly expanding population in southern Norway. A male Merlin, Oslo #122, showed three times as it hunted passerines, a Kestrel, Oslo #123, flew south as did 3 Golden Plovers, Oslo #124. There were also large numbers of thrushes and finches and Meadow Pipits were on the fields or in the air all the time.

A report of a pair of Pintail caused me to go to Østensjøvannet at midday when there seemed to be a lull in Maridalen and I duly saw these, Oslo #125, before finding a male Pochard, Oslo #126, and then a pair of Shoveler, Oslo #127. There were new birds wherever I looked! There were a lot of Black-headed and Common Gulls on the ice here but I was unable to turn up anything rarer although a Med Gull will surely appear soon.

I was back in Maridalen for the early afternoon hoping that this was when the raptors would stream through but had a make do with a Pied Wagtail feeding with a few White Wags on the edge of the ice.

My eBird checklists from Maridalen and from Østensjøvannet.

White-tailed Eagle (havørn) - a 3cy bird

flocks of geese going in all directions

Barnacle (hvitkinn), Greylag (grågås) and Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) feeding in Maridalen

Golden Plover (heilo) is not a guaranteed species in Oslo and this is very early

geese coming into land on the ice

male Merlin (dvergfalk)

Pied Wagtail (svartryggerle) with White Wagtail (linerle)

male Pochard (taffeland) and pair of Pintail (stjertand) at Øsensjøvannet

the Pochard with Common Gulls (fiskemåke)

one of four Ring Ouzels (ringtrost) in Maridalen

there are a pair of House Sparrows (gråspurv) in Maridalen and visiting a nest hole