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!!!
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
Now I’m not really moaning but I was missing Maridalen again today. My
trips to Jæren have never really delivered the goods and today was slow going.
Our birding session in the morning started with an attempt to find passerines
and gave just my first Pied Flycatcher (svarthvit fluesnapper) of the year of any
interest. After this we tried various places before hour heading to a good view
point for raptors. On our travels we picked up Whinchat (buskskvett) and Cuckoo
(gjøk) which were new for the year plus a nice male Garganey (knekkand) but
there were not a lot of birds to see. Our raptor watching was even quieter
though and the only migrating birds were 2 Buzzards (musvåk) and 4 Sparrowhawks
(spurvehauk) although 3 Golden Eagles (kongeørn) were of course nice and a singing
Wryneck (vendehals) was a little unexpected.
Back at Kjells house we caught up with a long staying male Green-winged
Teal (amerikakrikkand) and a very smart and interesting Pochard (taffeland) x
Tufted Duck (toppand) hybrid which has caused confusion with it being called a
Lesser Scaup (purprhodeand) although its true identity was surprisingly obvious
with it looking very Pochard like from certain angles.
Male Garganey (knekkand) with Teal (krikkand), Mallard (stokkand) and a male Gadwall (snadderand)
never a bird one can go tired of: Pied Flycatcher (svarthvit fluesnapper)
male Scaup (bergand) with male Tufted Duck (toppand)
the male hybrid Pochard (taffeland) x Tufted Duck. Note how the head shape varies, the purple head colour, the grey back, the bill resembles Pochard. Not so clear in these pictures is that the flanks were not white and were noticeably greyer than on Tufted Duck which is a clear Pochard influence
