Loads of birds!

I frequently am accused of being overly optimistic in my bird forecasts and expectations but I see that my predictions in my last post for Svellet were actually very pessimistic. The wader fest is far from over as the water levels have stopped climbing (at least for now) and there clearly is enough food available as wader numbers which fell on Wednesday rose sharply yesterday (when I did not visit) and were still high today. Viewing conditions are far from great which is par for the course there but today I was able to pick out a Temminck’s Stint although another one on nearby Merkja was much easier to view (as were two yesterday evening which I twitched at Fornebu).

Yesterday gave me a non-wader mass bird event and a quite unique one at that. Very large numbers of Willow Warblers have been seen crossing the fjord from Nesodden and they have been then concentrating at Østensjøvannet. It would appear that frost nights to the north (temperatures were under zero on Tuesday evening as we drove home form owling) are stopping the nocturnal migration of the Willow Warblers and they seem to be stopping their northward journey in the Oslo area and then continuing northwards during the day and moving whilst also searching for food. There is not an overabundance of insects yet in Oslo but Østensjøvannet clearly has good numbers. There were over 1000 Willow Warblers as I walked around the lake and every tree and bush was dripping with them. They were also feeding in long grass, on the short grass of playing fields, on a newly ploughed field, on the paths and many were sallying after insects in the manner of a flycatcher from any available perch including fence wires. It truly was an amazing experience both visually and orally as birds were also singing everywhere. There were not many other species that had clearly arrived with the WWs except for Blackcaps which were more common that normal but not in exceptional numbers. That there were lots of insects to eat though was shown by House Sparrows that were flycatching and Bramblings taking insects alongside the WWs in bushes.

This video gives some idea of how it was but does not pay the experience the justice it deserves:

Svellet 8th May as viewed from the eastern shore

and viewed from the west - still lots of mud and shallow water which clearly has more food than I expected after the water levels rose so quickly

A really heart warming sight at Østensjøvannet are the Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke) that are nesting again. There are three small colonies (including this one) and scattered single nests around the lake and the total number of nests may not be much more than 50 but this is in stark contrast to last years dire situation but also the 2000 odd pairs that used to breed here. Fingers crossed that there are lots of fledged young in a month or two. There is also a good colony at Sognsvann - it would appear that the two most visited lakes for recreational use are attractive to both humans and gulls - but I have yet to notice any nesting on the fjord so I fear that overall things are not good for the species

yesterday and today I could not see a single young Lapwing (vipe) in Maridalen but there is a new nest although as this field was only ploughed on Sunday I am not sure whether she is incubating or just in the egg laying phase

and the Mute Swans (knoppsvane) are now finished with nest building and are on the nest although I do not know whether any eggs have been layed yet

Sorry David

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my exceptional ability to fail to take exceptionally good videos. I am not talking about my videos being shaky and out of focus as that at least means I took the video, no I’m talking about all the videos I fail to take because of my continued inability to press the record button.

 

Yesterday evening saw yet another monumental f**k up and quite possibly the all-time best video that I never took when I had a Great Grey Owl at about 15m range with a large vole in its bill. The vole was still alive and its feet twitching when the owl delivered the killer bite to the head, ate the head and then swallowed the body all whilst looking at me. The light was good, it was in sharp focus and I was holding the superzoom steady but had I pressed record? I thought I had, I even thought I had checked the red circle was showing in the top right corner of the view finder. But no, of course, I hadn’t and I am still kicking myself.

We are talking about a video (that wasn’t) so incredibly good that David Attenborough would have paid me for the honour of narrating it.

 

This video which was taken immediately after has me expressing my utter contempt for myself whilst the owl looks on….

Great Grey Owl (lappugle) just after it swallowed a big vole but you'll just have to take my word for that as I FAILED to film it

This happening arose as Jack accompanied me on a trip to deepest Hedmark to try to get to the bottom of the GGO situation anno 2026. We checked 4 platforms and 2 old Buzzard nests without finding any incubating GGs. At the platform that I have visited twice before in April the pair were present and the female was very aggressive with bill clicking beginning when we were 50m away and had yet to see her. She also adopted a threat posture and looked like she might fly at us at any moment. Her bill clicking also brought the male in who sat a bit less open but also clicked at us. This aggression from GGO when they do not have young to protect is most unusual (perhaps unprecedented) as is the fact that the pair clearly remains in breeding modus but have not yet laid eggs and it is surely too late now.

the female in threat posture

the male

the males

the pair with the female on the left

The hunting bird we saw was an encouraging sign but the fact it ate the vole rather than flying off with it to feed a mate leaves me not knowing whether or not it was a breeding bird. I do know of an occupied nest but have yet to visit that site as it has been important that I find my own birds but I may have to give up on that hope for this year.

We ruined our finger nails scratching on trunks under every woodpecker hole we saw with only a Great Spotted pecker ever flying out but at a nestbox we did finally find breeding Tengmalm’s although it was Jack who scratched so I still do not know if I have a technique that works.

Other birds seen were a couple of Capers but again females, Black Grouse, Wryneck and Woodcock but it was a cold day with temperatures falling below zero as soon as it got dark and that probably caused less activity than we could have hoped for.

 

we had two roadside sightings of Moose

 

Back in Oslo this morning I was faced with the realisation that springs undoubted highlight - the wader migration at Svellet - is pretty much over. Water levels rose another 20cm yesterday to 4.03m and whilst there is still mud and shallow water there are clearly few remaining areas where there is food in the mud and wader numbers were nearly halved from yesterday and many were just roosting rather than feeding. It is a travesty that such an internationally important staging post for shorebirds cannot be managed better but that pretty much sums up «conservation» in the world’s richest and «best» country.

Svellet 6th May. There is still (dry) mud but water levels have risen a lot

In Maridalen it looks like the 3^rd Lapwing nest has now hatched with there being four young near it and no bird still incubating and yesterday’s brood of three is actually four but I never saw these two broods simultaneously so there remains a very small chance that one single brood of four 1-2 day old young was able to cross a ditch.

a brood of day old Lapwing (vipe)

rarity of the day was this all black corvid on the Lapwing field. I concluded with it being a 2cy Rook (kornkråke) rather than a Carrion Crow (svartkråke) but it ain't always straightforward especially at distance in heat haze. Interestingly the Lapwings which always tried to chase away any intruding Hooded Crows left this bird alone

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

A week gone by

As I write this it is just +1C and snowing outside the window. This is in stark contrast to England where Jr and I spent a loooong weekend looking at flowering daffodils, bluebells, wood anemones, Firecrests and Red Kites. Firecrests have now become ten a penny in my childhood birding haunts where I definitely did not see a single one (40 years ago….) when I was a young birder and Red Kites now cruise over urban areas looking for a snack. In contrast to these species that have become much commoner I also heard a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker which would appear to be the first eBird record for West Sussex this year. It was a rare species when I was a lad but has clearly become even rarer in the (may) intervening years.

Before we went to England Maridalsvannet was still frozen and Østensjøvannet still half so. Now Maridalsvannet and, I presume, ØV are ice free but surprisingly Sognsvann proved to still be covered in ice on a walk with The Beast today. We are still waiting for the big arrival of thrushes but lots of Chaffinches have arrived although we are still waiting for the big arrival of Bramblings. Yesterday was a good day for Pink-footed Geese with 3000 or so passing over Maridalen in just an hour of observation but there did not seem to be anything else moving. Maybe I will still get big raptor da

Mute Swan (knoppsvane) pair on Maridalsvannet. I have not seen them getting any grief from the Whooper Swans so may be there will be far less swan drama this year although I still think the lake is a very suboptimal locality for them. Both birds had colour rings although I was unable to read them

Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås) heading north over Jr in Maridalen yesterday

a lone Pink-foot with Greylags by a frozen Sognsvann today

a large flock of Pink-feet over Nes in Maridalen

a pair of Smew (lappfiskand) at Østensjøvannet before we went to England. It has now become an expected event that the species will turn up as soon as the ice starts melting there

another species that has appeared in Sussex since I left is Egyptian Goose (niland) which still breeds during the southern summer, i.e our winter

Goshawk (hønsehauk) nest at Sognsvann today. This pair must surely be the most accepting of humans in the whole of Norway

me scoping an ice free Maridalsvannet yesterday