I dropped even a cursory check of Maridalen this
morning with blue skies making me want to get to Svellet before the sun ruined
things. Viewing conditions were good but the weather had clearly caused more
birds to leave than arrive and Greenshank numbers had fallen to 132 although
Wood Sands had increased to 56. A female Ruff had now joined the three males
but otherwise there was nothing new in except for a flyover Yellow Wagtail
which was my first for the year.
At Snekkervika distant Marsh Harrier and White-tailed
Eagle were OK raptors to see but still no sign of a Pallid Harrier for me.
Yesterday evening pictures emerged of a White Stork
on Facebook at a location less than 30 minutes drive from Øyeren. I considered
going to look for the bird myself but decided to hope others refound it and
reported it. At 8am a check of Facebook revealed that the finder had seen the bird
again this morning. There was a location mentioned and he said it wasn’t 100%
correct but close enough. I therefore drove expectantly there thinking how hard
can it be to find a Stork? When I got to the plot there were a handful of
birders already there who hadn’t seen the bird and commented that the fields
here didn’t look like the ones the bird was pictured in. I asked if anyone had
contacted the finder and got a response suggesting that was a silly thing to
suggest. I found his number, called him and spoke to a very nice and helpful
person. His house was right where we were and I was invited there to look at
the map with him. I was invited in, given coffee and shown on the map that the
bird was actually about 4km away but they would happily drive with me there.
The original confusion as to location had been because Artsobservasjoner is
unfortunately a difficult system for new users and he had been unable, quite understandably,
to enter the correct location. This lack of user friendliness and the fact that
Artsdatabank has not done anything to improve it over the last decade is one of
the reasons that I now use eBird.
We got into our cars and I checked my phone to find
out that whilst we were inside the assembled birders had seen the Stork flying
high over the house…… By the time I saw the message though (7 minutes after it
was sent) the bird was out of sight and a check of the original fields drew a
blank…. This is why I hate twitching!!!!! If only the Bird Gods rewarded good
behaviour then it would be OK but they just seem random….
A dog and wife walk around Maridalen revealed little
in the way of birds except for my first Wood Warbler which sang beautifully for
us.
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| my first Wood Warbler (bøksanger) of the year |
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| a close Wood Pigeon (ringdue) in the garden |
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| multiple eye lids |
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