You have to be in it to win it
and Saturday morning was a struggle for me to get up. I managed to send Halvard
H a message at 08:09 to ask if he had seen anything and then promptly fell
asleep again. Waking an hour later I was very annoyed and jealous to see a
picture of a pair of Garganey on my phone. This is a much wanted Maridalen tick
for me and although I rushed up there in record time I could not locate them
despite searching hard. The lake was nearly without a ripple and there were
quite a few commoner ducks including 12 Teal and I was kicking myself for
having not set the alarm.
With my oldest daughter having discovered
she likes wildlife photography I had another visit to Maridalen in the
afternoon but we again failed to find the Garganey but did have another Osprey
and Black-throated Divers.
After this I had a stroke of
luck. After the purchase of an icecream Jr was persuaded that a trip to
Østensjøvannet would be a good idea. A 2nd summer Med Gull had been
found here yesterday (and subsequently and unnecessarily blringed).
I had seen no reports as to whether it was present today and when we arrived
there were no birders looking for it and hundreds of Black-headed Gulls as far
as the eye could see which made me think it was a hopeless task. I started
scanning and amazingly enough after only a minute I saw the target bird sitting
on the water! It promptly flew off but we relocated it 5 minutes later where it
showed well. In this plumage it superficially resembles a Black-headed Gull but
is a much smarter bird. It is long overdue that the large Black-headed Gull
colony at Østensjøvannet attracted a Med Gull and with global warming it wouldn’t
surprise me if this species became regular here over the course of the coming
decade.
On Sunday morning I was definitely
in it but whether I won it is another question. I was up in Maridalen from 0620
and was lucky enough to experience rain, sleet, northerly winds and
temperatures just above zero. Were they any interesting birds? You can bet your
*rse there weren’t! Bramblings had arrived in large numbers with at least 1000
in the valley and they were making a right din but other signs of migration
were hard to come by with a single Ring Ouzel standing out.
On the breeding bird front there
were some promising signs. The Lapwing population in the valley seems to
comprise 8 birds although I haven’t confirmed whether that means 4 pairs. They
have been hanging about on a single field at Skjerven farm (where I saw a pair
mating today) but today two of the birds have moved to the recently ploughed
fields at Kirkeby and were intensely displaying and buzzing me as I walked
along the path. This has been a traditional nesting site although they did not
nest last year and I feared that was that so let’s hope there is success this
year although with the number of cats I fear that any fledglings will have a
hard time (in 2014 three hatched but I don’t think any fledged).
I also had, despite the weather,
Skylarks at four separate sites in the valley which seems (without checking) to
be more than usual.
First some pics and a video of the Med Gull
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| 3cy (2nd summer) Mediterannean Gull (svarthavsmåke) Østensjøvannet, Oslo |
and Sundays highlights: a video where you can here the din that Bramblings were making all arounf Maridalen and a distant and grainy Ring Ouzel
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| Ring Ouzel (ringtrost) on a cold and wet Sunday morning in Maridalen |
And now for some good photos. I am lucky that we have one good photographer in the family - here are OsloBirder Jr's pictures from Saturday:
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| Canada Goose (kanadagås) |
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| Greylag Geese (grågås) |
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| Coots (sothøne) and Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke) |
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| male Mallard (stokkand) |
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| Mute Swan (knoppsvane) and water drops |
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| OsloBirder |