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

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

And so it begins

Perhaps the most obvious example of viz mig that we have in Oslo is the huge numbers of Pink-footed Geese that migrate over us every spring on their long journey to Svalbard. According to the book «Guide til Fuglelivet i Oslo og Akershus» which was published in 2001 the passage occurs between mid-April and the end of May with the peak in the first two weeks of May although they note that towards the end of the 1990s larger and larger numbers were passing at the end of April. Fast forward 20 odd years and peak passage now often occurs at the end of March!

Yesterday I saw my first migrating flocks over both the house and Fornebu. Conditions here are hardly suitable for them here but I assume there were favourable winds in Denmark that encouraged them on their way.

my first Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) of the year

Today I visited the river Glomma and Pink-feet had also arrived there. I only found a handful of the Taiga Beans but did have a couple of White-fronts, a single Tundra Bean, single Barnacle and Greylags and Canada so 7 species of geese! Cranes had also arrived as had 300 Whoopers and with most fields covered in snow Skylarks were concentrated and I had a noisy flock of 200.

Surprisingly the only raptor I saw was a Sparrowhawk.

 

Back in Oslo there have been a few flocks of Whooper Swans passing over and the flood at Hengsenga is still looking mouth wateringly good. A small flock of Pink-feet were there today but best of all were two Pied Wagtails and a White Wagtail which were my 100th Oslo species of the year (a milestone I did not reach in my record year of 2019 until 29 March). One of the Pied Wags was a cracking male which I have seen only rarely in Norway.

Species 101 came a bit later with a flyover White-tailed Eagle in Maridalen. We are entering exciting times!

On Sunday I went for a 2 hour walk in the forests close to Maridalen without hearing a single owl. It was a perfect night with no wind and this complete lack of owls just shows how locally they (and rodents) are occurring this year.

male Pied Wagtail (svartryggerle)

the brown flight feathers make this a 2cy male

the male on the right and what I assume is a female Pied on the left

the assumed female. All flight feathers are black making it an adult (3cy+). The other option is that this is a intergrade between Pied and White

male Pied flying over a male White Wagtail (linerle)

White and Pied

the White Wagtail, an adult (3cy+) male by the look of things

Cranes (trane) on a still frozen Glomma river edge

the Maridalen Great Grey Shrike (varsler)

Pink-footed Geese by the flood at Bygdøy

a frosty Common Redpoll (gråsisik)

this Bean Goose, together with a Greylag is by my reckoning a Tundra due to a short neck and stubby(ish) bill but some birds are pretty impossible

Pink-footed Geese with 2 White-fronted (tundragås)

White-tailed Eagle (havørn) over Maridalen. The uneven back to the wing shows moulting and makes this a 3cy

a migrating flock of 10 adult Whooper Swans (sangsvane) that dropped into Maridalsvannet