Dire, good, great

Birding’s a funny old game. You spend your whole day with the word dire going through your mind and then first one bird and then another, neither of which is even that rare, suddenly makes it a good, indeed great, day.

I am trying to check Svellet daily so as to document its greatness but today (water level has fallen by 3cm to 3.74m) saw a reduction in Greenshank numbers, it may have only been two fewer birds but there goes my exponential growth hopes. The two were replaced by a single Redshank and single Ruff so there is a quantity over quality argument. Tomorrow though….

The greatness came in Maridalen but I did have to work darn hard for it. Dry fields are now being ploughed but that doesn’t mean any new birds – not even any Wheatears yet. With a lack of migrants I found myself in the forests where a pair of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers was nice but it reminded me that otherwise it has been a very poor ‘pecker spring in the Dale. I have only heard Black drumming one, have not found 3 toes and even Great Spots don’t seem to be numerous – I only had one today! I thought I would give a final try for 3 toe though and after drawing a blank at one of the usual breeding sites I tried the other and FINALLY I would one. It was a single female and she wasn’t drumming and gave no real indication of breeding but further visits will hopefully reveal a pair although I am not too confident.

So that was one bird but how about the other? The light and some wind had made looking for waterfowl on the lake difficult but as I was driving out I gave it one last go and saw a group of 7 ducks a long way out. I had to use the scope but immediately saw that I had hit patch gold – a male Pochard with Tufties!!! This has been looooong overdue in the Dale and comes after Ring-necked Duck and a hybrid Pochard x Tufted Ducks. Now Pochard isn’t a common bird in Oslo although sightings are more of less annual at Østensjøvannet where birds can hang around and have probably bred before. Maridalsvannet is by no means a good location for the species but neither is it for Tufties but on migration birds will always stop off for a day before continuing their nocturnal migrations. That it would turn up with a flock of Tufties has always been how I assumed I would find one and it seemed to be interested in a female Tuftie so there may be more hybrids in the works

Pochard is probably the most obvious species we were missing in Maridalen and the valley list is now 228 species as reported onArtsobservasjoner and making it the premier location in Oslo. My Dale list is now 212 and I bloody chuffed with that!

 

If things continue like this then there may be daily updates to the blog!

GREAT. no prizes for the picture but I reckon you can see there is a male Pochard (taffeland) and some Tufties (toppand)

GOOD. Finally a Three-toed Woodpecker (tretåspett) at one of the normal breeding sites in Maridalen but I only found this female so I am uncertain as to whether there is breeding

a Lapwing (vipe) nest which the farmer has marked. He will be ploughing soon and there was also another nest which I am confident he will find. I counted 7 birds today with these two and their presumed mates nearby, another male who may also have an unseen nesting female and a pair who by their behaviour had me thinking they have failed in their first breeding attempt but are thinking of another go.

in addition to the pair who I filmed mating (see below) but have yet to build a nest there have also been two lone Mute Swans (knoppsvane) on the lake. This one allowed me to read its ring and P578 is the male of last years breeding pair that earlier in the spring was being territorial at Fornebu but now seems to have given up both on breeding and his mate PC79 although more likely something has happened to her (nothing is reported on either of them since 7 April)

apart from a few Meadow Pipits (heipiplerke) these two Ring Ouzels were the only passerine migrants I noted in Maridalen