Taking stock at home

Maridalsvannet on the morning of 20th May

In Oslo it seems as though migration has come to end with rain and southerly winds causing absolutely nothing exciting to turn up. Svellet also still has mud but without there being a single wader reported this morning. Even though the period of quantity of passage birds has passed we are definitely entering the highest quality time and yesterday a stonking male Black-headed Bunting was pulled out of a mist nest in the garden of a twitcher who I had no idea had a ringers licence.

Almost all breeding migrants have now turned up with the first Rosefinches, Red-backed Shrikes, Marsh Warblers and Nightjars being reported now even if I have yet to see any of them yet.

My focus has now turned to locating breeding birds both for my own benefit and also a busy period of guiding that I have coming up. Hazel Grouse has been a real nightmare this spring. A long walk on 17 May with Mrs OB and The Beast took me past 8 or 9 territories where I have previously had the species but with not a single bird being found. Today I checked 3 territories in another area including “my pair” and did finally pull a bird out of the hat which I feel confident of being able to find again. Three-toed Woodpecker has also been a headache this year so a female that gave herself away tapping on a tree was a relief but she flew off without me being able to track her to a nest.

The two pairs of Black Woodpeckers continue to entertain with the one pair still applying the finishing interior design touches to their property and the other pair working hard to fill three noisy mouths with food. In this video you can see the male using over a minute and a half to feed them individually with food he is clearly regurgitating into his bill.

the male Black Woodpecker (svartspett) that is still putting the finishing touches to his property

and two of the three young in the other nest which is at a far more expected stage

Hobby (lerkefalk) today. I have only seen a single bird and heard no calling so do not believe a pair has returned yet

Black-throated Divers (storlom)

I watched a Wood Warbler (bøksanger) with nesting material in its beak fly onto the ground here. Can you spot the nest?

here it is and is of a similar construction to Willow Warbler (løvsanger) and Chiffchaff (gransanger) nests I have previously found

On the Lapwing front there are still two birds incubating and seemingly three broods of 4,1 and 1. With the two broods of single young the siblings were lost very early on but the remaining young are now half grown and will hopefully make it. The brood of 4 is a few days younger but the parents have done very well to still have all four alive.