Tuesday 18 May 2010

Can 4 days really make such a difference?

4 days ago the Svellet area of Nordre Øyeren held around 2000 waders, primarily Greenshank and Wood Sandpiper. I have not been able to get out birding the last 4 days so I was very excited when I arrived at Svellet this morning. And what did I see? Well in total I had 14 waders!!! The water level has risen a lot but there was still very large areas of mudflats. Perhaps these were not so rich in food as they have been exposed for so long but just as likely is that the spring migration is very concentrated and the birds simply cannot wait to move north to their breeding grounds. This picture shows what was present:

Greenshank, Redshank and Wood Sandpiper.

I checked a few other sites trying to find the Caspian Tern that had been moving around the area of the last few days but failed to find it. The best I managed were a pair of Marsh Harriers at a presumed breeding site and a couple of Honey Buzzards which looked to be migrating.

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