pre-Easter magic

Events have conspired to leave me Home Alone this week although I do have the company of my boy, The Beast (that makes it sound like I am becoming fond of him…). Now you may, or most likely may not, feel sorry for me but to be honest this has been great because Easter is my absolute favourite time for birding in Oslo and now I can bird until I, or the Beast, drops.

We have had a return to winter with a good dump of snow but spring is now so far advanced that nothing can stop the migrants from migrating and wintery weather just makes the birds more concentrated.

I have had to do drop offs at the airport twice and this allowed me to catch up with the Woodlarks that breed nearby. This is the traditional site in Akershus county although they do seem to be attempting to establish themselves in other places probably as a result of a warming climate and extensive forestry work which creates new suitable habitat.

Yesterday I decided to take my boy on a long drive and introduce him to the spring joys of Årnestangen and Aurskog-Høland and I think the Bird Gods approved of this selfless act 😉. A snow covered Årnestangen had attracted lots of wildfowl and best of all were Pintail and Shoveler. My first Meadow Pipits of the year were also present and there were generally loads of birds to see.

Onto the fantastic wetlands at Kjelle and it was overflowing with birds. Ther must have been over 1000 wildfowl on this small wetland and I set about going through every single bird. 6 White-fronted Geese were good, a male Pied Wagtail even better but best of all was a Bewick’s Swan. This species is getting rarer and rarer in Norway but is always a species to look out for amongst migrating flocks of Whooper Swans and 350 of the later was a good start point. The bird was a 2cy and I must admit to finding it difficult to identify. It’s small size was immediately apparent but the bill markings are not as obvious as on adult and I spent a good few minutes convincing myself of its identity.

Today, I kept things local and Maridalen did not disappoint for one second. Low cloud meant that passerines were passing low overhead and all morning there was a stream of Chaffinches along with Mistles Thrushes (I counted 67 with a single flock of 27 and this smashes the old Oslo record of 40), Twite, Meadow Pipits and Snow Buntings among others. The absolute highlight, and an Oslo tick to boot, was a Wood Lark. I picked it up on call flying over Kirkeby and then drove to Nes which is the only place I could think it would stop and when I got out of the car it (or another?) was singing above me😊. There is only one other Maridalen record which remarkably enough was exactly one year ago today is almost the exact same place (same bird?).

I passed 50 species in a day, in Maridalen, for this first time this year and here is my checklist 

 

My Oslo list has now risen to 111 with the following additions since my last update:

102       Linnet

103       Crane

104       Teal

105       Gadwall (a twitch to Østensjøvannet)

106       Goosander

107       Buzzard

108       Woodcock

109       Mipit

110       Redwing

111       Woodlark

Bewick's Swan (dvergsvane) and a noticeably larger Whooper Swan (sangsvane)

here it looks positively tiny

my first Kestrel (tårnfalk) of the year and already back in its nestbox

Lapwings (vipe) are getting really quite scarce now and this concentration at Kjelle represented probably most of the local breeders

male Pied Wagtail (svartryggerle) - looks like a good spring for them

migrating Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) at a wintery Årnestangen. Can you spot the Barnacle Geese (hvitkinngås)

an assortment of ducks at Årnestangen. Can you spot the Pintails (stjertand)?

a lonely male Shoveler (skjeand)

6 White-fronted Geese (tundragås) at Kjelle

in flight - looks to be 5 adults and a 2cy

some very rust stained Whoopers

Kjelle

my first Woodlark (trelerke) of the year near Gardermoen

Cranes (trane) in Maridalen

Gadwall (snadderand) at Østensjøvannet

Whooper Swans and Pink-footed Geese at Årnestangen. The middle bird has a neck collar and its history is shown below

it was ringed in Finland and seems to follow the less used easterly migration route to Svalbard. This is its first sighting in Norway and it will be interesting to know if there are any other sightings this spring to show which route it takes

Woodlark in Maridalen and my 250th species in Oslo!!

a pale Common Buzzard (musvåk) and one that can easily be misidentified as a host of other species

exactly 30 Lapwing on the ice in Maridalen. A record count and it will be interesting to see how many stay to breed

Snow Bunting (snøspurv) in Maridalen

a Whooper Swan with a similar neck was in Maridalen last spring and this is I assume the same bird. It looks painful but is clearly possible to live with

Beany time

Julian joined me today and we headed first to look for the Taiga Bean Geese. I also hoped for some viz mig but we had very little of that with just a few Lapwings clearly migrating.

Winter which had returned last week left us abruptly on Sunday morning when rain and warm temperatures resulted in snow rapidly disappearing and quite a bit of flooding in the river valleys today. It will take a few more warm days before migrant waterfowl start exploiting the flood waters but there is a question as to how long the waters will remain if we don’t get more rain soon.

The thaw had allowed the Bean Geese to use their usual favoured field and we counted 124 birds. Among them were 7 collared birds but only one of these had a new GPS collar whilst 2 have been transmitting from the area. Another observer had around 140 birds in the area later in the day (split into 2 flocks) suggesting we missed some birds (including the other GPS collar) earlier in the day. The Taiga Beans were entirely on their own with no Whooper Swans or other geese species with them.

Other good birds in the day were my first Cranes and Reed Bunting for the year and stop in Maridalen also revealed the first returning Lapwing and Starlings in the Dale.

part of the flock on a favoured field and the same field where I first read the rings on 20 March 2012. Today, I didn't read any of the same rings as I did 8 years ago although some are still around

a bird in flight showing the dark forewing

the distinctive long neck and bills of Taiga Bean Geese

7V and 3Y are a pair that I have seen many times since they were ringed in October 2013

this bird has an old, non-functioning GPS collar without an inscription but had a yellow ring on its left leg showing it to be "04" who was also ringed Oct 2013 and a bird I know well 

these two birds with very orange bills and white at the base are very extreme and similar birds have been misidentified as White-fronted in the past

the inset shows two new GPS collars:  on the left must be «18» and on the right is «27»

one of 3 Lapwings in Maridalen

9 March is the joint earliest arrival date

Common Buzzard (musvåk)

2 very distant Cranes (trane)

the neck collar on this Greylag at Kjelle, Bjørkelangen did NOT look comfortable at all! The bird was ringed in Sweden 18June 2018 was also seen at Kjelle in May 2019 and spent this last winter in Germany

Cold and quiet start to May

The 1 May bank holiday is always good for birding in Maridalen with an early start richly rewarded, that is of course unless it is only 1C, sleeting and blowing from the NE. Yesterday was a very dire day with my pre-breakfast trip not rewarded in anyway. I even manged to see nothing at Huk and Østensjøvannet as well before going home for a fry up. A late afternoon walk with the missus did reveal my first Whinchat of the year after the rain had stopped but expectations had been higher.

Today I headed out east for a tour de AH. I had hoped to find concentrations of hungry hirundines and find a Rr Swallow amongst them. I had hardly a single hirundine all day and the hunting Monties that I was going to find didn't show either.

Three Marsh Harriers was some reward although the day was so cold that I had no soaring raptors. The flooded fields at Kjelle provided the highlight of the day with three Garganey showing at very close range and over 50 Wood Sands also here alongside 260 Teal.

a male and 2 female Garganey (knekkand). There was also another male hanging out with Teals at the same place

Water Rail (vannriske) at Hellesjøvnnet

the flooded fields at Kjelle which will hopfully still hold water for at least another week and stat attracting exciting waders (today there were 56 Wood Sands and 10 Greenshank)

the last ice at Maridalsvannet today had 250 Common Gulls perching on it

Cranes (trane) in Maridalen yesterday

1 May in Maridalen. The ice had broken up overnight and by the afternoon was blown by the wind towards the west (right) bank

Lesser Whitethroat (møller)

Marsh Harrier (sivhauk)

a late Mistle Thrush (duetrost) in Maridalen yesterday - today there were 2 Ring Ouzels

Redstart (rødstjert)

A real surprise

I had a very early start in some deep forests hoping to see something large and pale charcoal coloured but didn’t succeed on that score. I did hear the sound of many lekking Black Grouse, had a singing Parrot Crossbill plus Black Woodpeckers, Mistle Thrushes and could hear displaying Cranes. So a nice way to spend breakfast!

Later in the day I visited Kjelle where there were still no Green-winged Teal or Garganey amongst the Teal and only a single Tundra/rossicus Bean Goose amongst the geese.

Svellet was the site of the day. Curlew numbers have now risen to 86 and 66 Teal were feeding in the shallow waters (water is at a premium as it is mostly mud). So this was a huge increase from 2 days ago when there were 26 Curlew and no Teal. Highlight and a real surprise though was a raptor. On Tuesday I had an adult Peregrine perched on a log out in the middle, so when I saw a distant perched raptor I initially assumed it was the same Peregrine. However, something was not right and I cranked up the magnification on the scope. This bird was pale and grey, it was lacking a moustache stripe and instead had dark cheeks and its tail clearly projected beyond the wing tips – a GYR FALCON. This was my first record in Akershus and as has been the case with all my records of Gyr Falcon was a distant bird that allowed itself to barely be photographed – when will I see a close photogenic bird? The ID through the scope was not in doubt though. The plumage was not of a juv/2cy bird which would be expected but instead of an older bird. Adults should be firmly established on breeding sites now so unless this was a wandering unpaired non-breeding bird I assume it was a 3cy.

Crappy photos indeed. But through the 'scope I could see this was a Gyr Falcon (jaktfalk) 

Tundra (rossicus) Bean Goose with Pink-footed, and Canada Geese. When asleep its darker back allowed it to be separated from the Pink-foots which (generally) have a greyer back

some of the Curlews (storspove) feeding in Svellet