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

The big lull

It’s been a long while since my last post and it has been an infuriating time but I’m sure I’ve written something similar many times before at this time of the year. We have entered what a lull with sunny, dry weather meaning no meaningful arrivals of birds and also difficult viewing conditions especially at Årnestangen and Svellet where long distances and hear haze become a real issue.

It is spring though and of course new birds are arriving but it is a trickle and there is no volume of birds. Slavonian Grebes have made their annual visit to Maridalsvannet, a visit that seems to come earlier and earlier each year. Other species that have arrived early are Wryneck, Pied Flycatcher, House Martin and Willow Warbler but raptor migration is still a dream despite me trying from a variety of places – I have yet to see a Hen Harrier let alone a Pallid..

I have just had two good days of guiding with Margie and Greg from Wisconsin where we racked up 85 species with Wryneck, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Ring Ouzel and Rough-legged Buzzard amongst them. Despite us starting the day early it became quite hard going after around noon with the sunny weather causing a real decline in activity. This sunny weather is forecast for at least the next 10 days so I fear that the magical Svellet spring that I was predicting may already be unlikely. The day we do get some rain though could end up being one of those days though.

 

After guiding and drop off at the airport I continued north for an evening in owl land. I twitched a Great White Egret on the way which I actually managed to see from the motorway at 110km/h but did also stop to admire a bit better.

Owls are a mixed picture. Ural Owls are giving me my best ever joy with the species with two nest boxes that I have checked now being occupied - this amounts to nearly 10% of the known Norwegian population!

Great Grey Owl though is a different story. I again visited the two nests from last year and found no birds by the natural nest. By the platform the female was still present but not on eggs. She is a strange one though and gave herself away by bill clicking when I was still close to 50m away and had not yet seen her. She is clearly territorial. 

 

One person who knows a lot more about owls than me reckons it is just still early in the season and that birds will nest and lay eggs whereas another reckons the rodent population has collapsed. Time will tell but unless they lay eggs in the next week or two it will be too late. In the Facebook group Ugler i Norden there are updates from a platform that has a camera watching over it. Here birds were first seen coming to the platform already 22 Feb and mating was observed from 7 April but the first, and so far only?, egg was not laid until 2 months later on 21 April. This to me suggests a pair who want to breed but are finding the food situation very borderline.

When in the forests a roadside female Capercaille was a treat and I continue with my tree scratching whenever I see a suitable hole. This time I did get a bird but and a Stock Dove was very unexpected given where I was but why oh why couldn’t it have been a Tengmalm’s?

Six Slav Grebes (horndykker) on Maridalsvannet - an Oslo record count!

a single bird two days later may well have been in addition to the six

Two Ring Ouzels (ringtrost) - it always feel like a big relief when I see these in the spring as it is a species I never feel guaranteed to see in Oslo (but do)

female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (dvergspett) whilst guiding. This bird was making a lot of noise and was I reckon unpaired and getting desperate

my first Wryneck (vendehals) of the year and another good bird to see whilst guiding

a great looking old Black Woodpecker hole that I was sure would reveal a Tengmalm's Owl (perleugle) but instead and for me very surprisingly revealed a Stock Dove (skogdue). At least my tree scratching skills seem to be OK now.

roadside female Caper (storfugl)

Great White Egret (egretthegre)

Great Grey Owl (lappugle) - the same bird as in my previous owl post

Ural Owl (slagugle) - also the same bird as in my last owl post

but he she is with her mate (on the left). I have rarely encountered the male at a nest site and then they are normally much shyer than this bird seemed to be. He flew in after the female called and maybe felt he had a job to do

and Ural Owl nest #2. This box is old and the bottom starting to fall out perhaps suggesting that whoever put it up no longer checks it and I hope it survives the season

Maridalsvannet on Monday morning. Lovely weather but no many birds

a very long, straight road in Hedmark's deep forests

A pair of Ringed Plover (sandlo) is clinging on at Fornebu and here, and in the video, the male is creating nest scrapes for the females approval. The area they were doing it in was very close to paths and roads so I suspect they will struggle.

I finally managed to read the rings on the Mute Swan (knoppsvane) pair that is visiting Maridalsvannet this spring. Surprisingly they are not the same pair that bred last year which have established themselves at Fornebu now. This pair have  been seen together since March 2025 when they were at Østensjøvannet but did not breed . The female P576 was ringed as an adult in 28km away in March 2017 so is a mature lady. She bred in 2022 with another mate but did not raise young whilst the male was ringed as a juvenile in November 2023 11km away and is so young that he wouldn't have been expected to breed before now

I have also seen Long-eared Owls (hornugle). They were a pair by an old Crow's nest but it did not appear that eggs had been laid yet

Ring-necked Duck

We seem to be in another of those dead spells which I’m sure occur in the middle of April every year when I expect wave after wave of migrants to appear but they don’t even if the conditions are “perfect”.

We had some light rain on Sunday evening but even that hasn’t helped. The farmers have started ploughing and even sowing some of the fields in Maridalen but apart from geese, including a flock of 190 Pink-feet, there is hardly a bird to be seen. Meadow Pipits are noticeable only be their near total absence. A couple of Wheatears and my first Ring Ouzel have been the only birds worth a mention. Raptors have, of course, also been just a dream.

Some fortune did come my way though yesterday evening. On the way out at 1915 to pick up Jr Jr from Lørenskog I checked my phone and saw I had an email titled «ring necked duck». It was Tomas Mazak, a Slovenian birder living in Oslo who I have yet to meet but he was kind enough to inform me he had found a male Ring-necked Duck at Lillestrøm. This was only 10 minutes further drive from Jr Jr so would hardly even count as a twitch😉 A call to Jr Jr to see if she preferred to see the bird or be picked up a bit late was answered as expected so I got to see the bird without continually being asked «are you finished» but it did mean I couldn’t spend that long with it. This was an Akershus tick for me although could well be the same bird that stopped off at Maridalsvannet (Oslo) a few years ago.

adult male Ring-necked Duck (ringand)

here with a Tufted Duck (toppand) in the foreground

my first Ring Ouzel (ringtrost) of the year. In Maridalen of course

a Starling (stær) and a bee

Maridalen's first Wheatear (steinskvett) of the year

the quest to find a Red Kite continues but the odd Marsh Harrier (sivhauk) turns up such as this old male at Kallaksjøen

and this 2cy bird in Maridalen

The ice melts

Whilst I was away at the weekend the ice melted on Maridalsvannet. This is early but despite it having been so dry the water levels are currently high so the lake doesn’t yet look that appealing. That being said though there have already been some good birds and maybe when the ice doesn’t melt until the end of the month as is often the case that means that a lot of birds are missed out on as they cannot splash down even if they wanted. Both species of diver are already back and their display calls ring around the valley. More impressively though has been the three , yes 3, species of grebes that have graced the lake. Following last years first ever record of Little Grebe in the Dale a bird in exactly the same place it was probably the same bird. Great Crested Grebe is more expected but a Slavonian Grebe hanging out with Teal is record early as this species normally passes through, and not annually, at the end of the month.

Raptors are still very thin on the ground but the first Osprey of the year turned up on Tuesday and a Peregrine was hunting in the valley today. Today also finally saw the first day with really good numbers of passerines on the (very dry) fields: Bramblings, Redwings and Meadow Pipits were the most numerous.

A real treat today was being able to listen to the calls of migrating Curlews and a flock of 6 really wanted to land but in the end gave up and flew north.

an ice free Maridalsvannet looking towards the south

my first Osprey (fiskeørn) of the year - a particularly well marked female

migrating Curlews (storspove)

Little Grebe (dvergdykker)

Slavonian Grebe (horndykker)

and the best picture of all, a Great Crested Grebe (toppdykker)...

there have been up to 10 Lapwing (vipe) on their favoured two fields and there are already two nests. Nest 1

Nest 2

Green Sandpiper (skogsnipe)

a Kestrel (tårnfalk) today and a Brambling (bjørkefink)

a young Peregrine (vandrefalk) that I saw three times today

Yesterday I thought I would see if Sørkedalen had anything more to offer and caught up with the plastic hybrid goose that has been around for a couple of weeks and a real piece of plastic had me for quite a few seconds thinking I had seen my first Ring Ouzel of the year…

what looks to be a hybrid Emporer x Barnacle Goose together with Pink-feet

showing leg colour

and I thought this was a Ring Ouzel...