A bit of magic in Maridalen

With the high water levels and blue skies I have not been expecting any waders in Maridalen but once again my predictions have proven to be wrong. Today there was a distinct arrival of waders despite cloudless skies and I believe a combination of a full moon and perhaps favourable winds was enough to cause a lot of waders to make the move north and the ones that were over Maridalen at dawn just decided to land for a rest. I started the day checking the ploughed field where I was hoping for pipits and wagtails with perhaps a Shore Lark but there was nothing, not even a gull! The farmer had only ploughed half the field though and from the still stubble area I heard the unmistakeable sound of a displaying Great Snipe! I have had Great Snipe a few times on spring passage in Maridalen but never in the middle of stubble field. I had my thermal imager with me but on a sunny morning there were far too many warm objects for it to be of any help in finding the bird but I did eventually manage to locate it although it was far from cooperative. This would appear to be the first record in Norway this (late) spring.

I was well chuffed with how the day had started and then when I went down to the lake and found numbers of Greenshank (13) and Wood Sandpiper (17) I realised something was afoot and regretted my decision to not visit Svellet today. I scanned the lake for ducks hoping for scoter and saw there were some Tufties flying around. I walked out to Nestangen to get a better view of the lake and going through a small group of Tufties I saw a red head and grey back and immediately thought that Maridalen’s perhaps most obvious bogey bird, Pochard, had finally turned up. But no, it was not a Pochard but something even more unusual. I briefly considered Redhead before realising that it was in fact a hybrid between Pochard and Tufted. I do rather like hybrids so thought this was really cool and then spent ages trying to adequately digitally document it.

There were 39 Tufted Duck on the lake which is a very respectable total along with 21 Black-throated and 2 Red-throated Divers and a Great Crested Grebe but only 11 Teal indicated a clear out rather than arrival of dabbling ducks.

With the blues skies and at time southerly winds I spent a lot of time peering skywards but did not have a single raptor all day!!!

Here is my eBird checklist.

I don't know whether it is the photographer or the equipment that is to blame but y pictures from today do not do the birds, and my views of them, justice.

filming the hybrid and the Tufties

male hybrid Pochard (taffeland) x Tufted Duck (toppand)

the tuft from the Tufted is very obvious here

but here the head shape is very Pochard like

Wood Sandpiper (grønnstilk)

Ring Ouzel (ringtrost) listening for worms

Greenshanks (gluttsnipe)

Great Snipe (dobbeltbekkasin) - the diagnostic double wing bars are just visible

here it is difficult to be sure what type of snipe it is