Guiding in Maridalen

 I was guiding today for the first time in a long while and it was good. This year looks like it will be a slight improvement on last year with more international travellers coming to Norway now that Covid restrictions are lifted.

I took Pat and Cal from the USA to Maridalen and we spent a very enjoyable morning there clocking up a good selection of species in hot and windless conditions. We do so desperately need some rain though but there continues to be none forecast. We recorded 48 species which I have registered on eBird with the highlights being Lesser Spotted and Black Woodpeckers, Buzzard, Black-throated Diver, Great Crested Grebe, Green Sandpiper and Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff very pedagogically singing in the same tree.

There seems to be a pause in the arrival of new migrants but May is only a month away so well get a surge quite soon.

female Black Woodpecker (Svartspett) sticking its head out of the completed nest

and in the same tree as Europe's largest woodpecker was the smallest - a male Lesser Spotted (dvergspett)

Buzzard (musvåk)

and with a male Sparrowhawk (spurvehauk)

Chiffchaff (gransanger)

and Willow Warbler (løvsanger) for comparison

male Goosander (laksand) with Mallards (stokkand)

Green Sandpiper (skogsnipe)

Robin (rødstrupe)

male Siskin (grønnsisik) and ant

and my first Green Hairstreak of the year - a cracking little butterfly

Slavonian Grebe and Ospreys

It takes a bit to match a Maridalen tick but birding since last Wednesday has been pretty good (as you would expect in the second half of April).

My weekly trip to Nordre Øyeren on Thursday was not as productive as I had hoped for. With the very dry weather we are having on top of little snow this winter there is extremely little water in the delta and the mud flats are enormous and dry. There are probably good birds out there but they are just too far away to see! I did find a Garganey pair at Merkja and saw quite a few Ospreys but you do expect more at this time of the year. The water level will rise during May though so the good birding experiences will come.

Maridalen produced a Slavonian Grebe which was of course found by Halvard. After not seeing the species at all in 2021 it was nice to see one in the Dale and the end of April is the classic time for one to turn up. Red-throated Divers are back on their breeding pond and Goshawks are also on the nest but not in all the territories I follow.

Østensjøvannet has had up to 3 Shoveler I have visited these twice as it is a favourite duck and one for which I always hope to get better pictures of the male.

Osprey (fiskeørn) getting grief from Common Gulls (fiskemåke)

and another Osprey with a fish being chased bu a Hooded Crow (kråke)

and an immature White-tailed Eagle (havørn) also being chased by a Crow

Pair of Teal (krikkand) and pair of Garganey (knekkand). The females are not easy to tell apart. The Garganey female is to the left

Black-throated Divers (storlom)

Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke)

Coot (sothøne)

The young Goshawk (hønsehauk) in Maridalen

Great rested Grebe (toppdykker) at Østensjøvannet stuggling to swallow a perch

newly emerged Toad crossing snow

and another one on a sandy path

a couple of late Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) in Maridalen

Red-throated Diver (smålom)

male Shoveler (skjeand) with Great Crested Grebe

the Slavonian Grebe (horndykker) on Maridalsvannet

Videos from Maridalen

Four videos from Maridalen on Wednesday: Garganey, Gadwall, Goosander & Teal and Snipe.

Garganey in Maridalen - finally!

I’m not sure whether I have written on it before but I often wonder what my next Maridalen species will be (after having reached 200 with a Kittiwake last autumn). Of course I hope for something rare with Pallid Harrier my most hoped for but there are a number of commoner species that I still miss. Pochard, Moorhen, Nightjar and Woodlark are obvious candidates although it is only Woodlark that has previously been recorded but Garganey is the species that I have known will fall sooner or later. There are three previous records of which one was a pair found by Halvard on an early morning when we had agreed to meet up but I slept in.

Yesterday morning Halvard again found Garganey on Maridalsvannet but this time I was awake although a phone that was initially on silent and then started doing an IOS update meant it took a while before I saw he had tried calling me and messaging me. No harm done though as they were still present when I got up there at 0820. Two pairs were sleeping on the water at the edge of the ice and I felt a rare calm descend over me as I sat and watched them. THANK YOU Halvard!

The lake is still over 90% frozen (probably 99%) but it will start breaking up very soon and the ice free areas in the bays are growing and growing and there is a really birdy feel to the place now. Green Sandpipers are everywhere and their migration is peaking now. The high numbers and variation in plumage has surprise, surprise resulted in reports of multiple Wood and Common Sandpipers around Oslo (although not in Maridalen thankfully). It never fails to surprise (and annoy) me how many, including quite active, birders fall into the same trap year after year – if you think you have seen an early Common or Wood Sand then please take a picture 😊

The only waders in addition to the Green Sands were 6 Snipe feeding together (and another found dead with a broken wing from most likely flying into a wire) and Lapwing but this will have to change soon. In addition to the 4 Garganey there was a male Gadwall, male Wigeon, 70 odd Teal, 13 Goosander plus Mallard and Goldeneye. Gadwall is a less than annual visitor to the Dale so was an additional sign dabbling ducks were on the move.

I had hoped that there would be a good movement of raptors and whilst I did see a Marsh Harrier and 3 Ospreys it was not as good as I thought the weather conditions should have delivered. Two singing Willow Warblers turned out to be my earliest EVER in Norway

The Garganey were very unafraid but for some reason my pictures didn’t do them justice. I took a lot of video that I have not been through yet but will try to post soon.

Four Garganey (knekkand) and a pair of Goosander (laksand)

male Garganey

female Garganey

the male Garganey with a swimming Green Sandpiper (skogsnipe)

male Gadwall (snadderand) with male Mallard (stokkand)

Goosander pair

and the male from the pair chasing off another male

the arrival of these 4 females gave the unpaired males something to fight over

Black-throated Divers (storlom)

Osprey (fiskeørn)

a lone Pink-footed Goose (kortnebbgås) is hanging out with the Greylags

This Raven (ravn) has found an egg which it was taking back to its nest

Ring Ouzel

Snipe (enkeltbekkasin)

a Camberwell Beauty (sørgekåpe)

and my earliest ever Norwegian Willow Warbler (løvsanger)