Black-throated Divers return

Blog posts on successive days has not happened for a while and must mean that spring is upon us. It is now easter holidays and whilst the rest of the family has a lie in I can start the day as I like best by getting up at dawn, birding in Maridalen and then getting home before anyone else has woken and making breakfast.

I was in the Dale at 6am when it was still quite dark due to low, heavy cloud. The car showed the temperature to be a barmy +3C and I was hoping for a lot of new birds. Surprisingly that was not to be with far fewer birds on the fields than yesterday, no viz mig and a total clear out of the Meadow Pipits from the last couple of days. As is usual though at this time of the year birds have a habit of suddenly turning up and a patch of water that held no Black-throated Divers at 6am, held one at 8am and then two at 9am and none again early afternoon! Although the lake is still 99% frozen there are increasing amounts of open water and mud and a total of 51 Teal was a high count. On the ice 2 Curlews were having a break from their north bound migration and an adult Peregrine was finishing off a bird it had caught earlier.

Whooper Swans were providing a lot of entertainment with the breeding pair chasing off another pair and not seeming to be able to tolerate their presence anywhere in the valley.

I chalked up 59 species today in the Dale and my eBird checklist can be read here.

First one Black-throated Diver (storlom)

and then two

a distant adult Peregrine (vandrefalk) tucking into what may have been a Teal (krikkand)

Two very distant Curlew (storspove) on the ice

Whooper Swan (sangsvane) action. The breeding pair have just landed and are celebrating chasing off the other pair

and here they are celebrating after chasing them off again from the ice where they had sought refuge

and here the fleeing interlopers pass the Peregrine

one of the small areas of open water with Whooper Swans, Mallard (stokkand), Teal (krikkand) and Goldeneye (kvinand)

will the pair of Cranes (trane) breed successfully for the first time this year?

a very confiding fox