Maridalen Temmincks

In yesterday’s post I wrote how I was looking forward to what today’s rain would bring and listed up hoped for species. Well, I didn’t need to wait that long as a dog and wife walking visit to Maridalen yesterday evening revealed 2 Temminck’s Stints. This is only the second record in Maridalen with the first being in 2011 when work on the dam led to low water levels in May (I have documented this one of my first blog posts).

I was on site at 5am today with sky high hopes and there was rain in the air and heavy cloud cover but there was no sight or sound of migrating waders (on similar days in previous years the air has been filled with the calls of Golden Plover, Greenshank and Wood Sandpiper e.g on 10 May 2019). All of yesterday’s waders (bar the Whimbrel) were still present including the stints and after over an hour more Wood Sandpipers arrived but it was almost unexplainably quiet and there were no new ducks either. 

I then had to leave the Dale to get new summer tyres fitted to the car. Very bad timing I know and it took AGES during which time I started getting stressed about all the birds I was missing… I quickly visited Østensjøvannet afterwards and notched up all 3 hirundines but no terns or Swifts yet. Back at Maridalen I thoroughly checked every muddy bay but could not add any new waders to my early morning total although a Spotted Flycatcher was my first for the year.

Here is my Maridalen eBird list for today.

Greenshank (gluttsnipe) and Wood Sandpipers (grønnstilk) in Maridalen this morning

Temminck's Stint and Wood Sandpiper yesterday evening when it was sunny. Look how tiny the Stint is!

Two Temmincks

It looks like one of the Black-throated Diver (storlom) pairs is getting ready to breed but they will be very at risk from changing water levels

Little Ringed Plover (dverglo) - I found only 2 single birds today

Pink-footed Goose (kortnebbgås)

Greenshank and the Redshank (rødstilk) which is here for its third day

Wood Sandpiper

Yellow Wagtails (gulerle)