Mid April and expectations are rising

It is the middle of April and the next six weeks are the most exciting of the year (in the Oslo area at least). In addition to many new birds for the year there are also new birding sites to reacquaint myself with and I have now competed my first walk to the end of Årnestangen for the year as well as my first grilling of the mighty Svellet.

Conditions today at Svellet were magical and I have a small but growing hope that this will be one of those Svellet springs that are entered into the history books, or at least get remembered on this blog. Today the water level (3.61m) was perfect and there were enormous areas of shallow water and wet mud. 2000 Teal and 234 Curlew were both good counts and the quality came in the form of a male Garganey, a Bar-tailed Godwit plus two very early Ruff and a Redshank. The weather over the coming weeks will be key to whether conditions remain perfect and we need just enough rain such that the mud doesn’t dry up but not too much rain (or sun that causes lots of melt water to flow down the river) such that water levels do not rise too quickly. I hope every birder in Oslo and Akershus is praying to the Birds Gods.

Svellet from the eastern side. Even though I describe conditions as perfect the distances are very long and a scope is essential and even then not always enough to identify all the birds out there

and some of the Teal (krikkand) and also the Garganey (knekkand). As I said they are a long way away

Årnestangen has also delivered with another very early wader in the form of a Whimbrel, an early Swallow and a good selection of raptors including a Red Kite which flew low over my head without me seeing it but that I then caught up with in the scope at about 6km range…

Taiga Bean Goose and Greylags at Årnestangen today. This is a relatively late bird as were the 4 Tundra Beans I saw yesterday

the bird was close to the Geylags in size and had a long slender neck and long thin bill with thin lower mandible.

I had a very enjoyable and successful morning guiding Barbara from Canada on Monday and we saw 60 species including Jack Snipe, Black and Red-throated Divers, Lesser Spotted and Black Woodpeckers. And if you don’t believe my description then read Barbara’s 😊

one of three Jack Snipe (kvartbekkasin) at Fornebu. This bird has been regularly feeding in the open and to me looks very much like a Broad-billed Sandpiper...

and a more expected shot of a Jack

and a Common Snipe (enkeltbekkasin)

male Kestrel (tårnfalk) in Maridalen

and a Mistle Thrush (duetrost) in The Dale

Little Ringed Plover (dverglo) are back at Fornebu and will hopefully breed again this year

and Ringed Plovers (sandlo) are also back at last years nest site although they have less and less space available to them

Stock Dove (skogdue)

Sunday driving & twitching

A new Sunday tradition may be in the making with it becoming twitching Sunday in which Jr gets to practice her driving by driving me to a rare bird. The most important thing to make this into a tradition now is that rare birds continue to found on Sunday mornings… That did indeed happen yesterday (following on from the Cattle Egret last week) with the Baikal Teal being refound 13 days after it was discovered and it was reported to have come a long was out of eclipse plumage so sounded like it would be worth seeing again. Since I saw it last I have had it in mind when visiting Nordre Øyeren and Østensjøvannet and it was in Nordre Øyeren that it was refound. Not amongst flocks of shy Teal or Wigeon but amongst Mallards (again) although in its favour there were also Shoveler, Pintail, Wigeon and Teal associating with the same Mallards. It truly looked like a male Baikal Teal now although may need another two weeks to lose all traces of the eclipse plumage. Hopefully it will hang around for a bit although winter arrived in force today and my attempts to see it again were hampered by a blizzard.

I checked up on both the Wheatear and Tree Pipit yesterday morning and both were going strong despie it being -1C but the blizzard today seemed to have put an end to the Tree Pipit in Maridalen although it may just have been clever enough to hide away somewhere. The terrible weather will continue tomorrow but Wednesday should allow me to have a better search for it. Best bird in Maridalen was an Arctic Redpoll with a 100 strong flock of Common Redpolls (there was also at least 1 Lesser Redpoll amongst them) but rarest bird was House Sparrow with a pair amongst a 100 strong flock of Tree Sparrows. Have they been here all the time since I first saw some in August?). The sparrows were curiously finding something to eat in the snow on the road. I have no idea what it was and the road had not been salted so it was not that they were looking for. I have also put up some fat balls in the hope of attracting the female Grey-headed Woodpecker that has been seen a handful of times over the last week although not by me yet.

the Baikal Teal (gulkinnand) was a bit too distant to see well but using the bazooka with 600m lens and 10x digital zoom it was OK to film it

this is a screen grab from the video, and here is the video:

Today's Arctic Redpoll (polarsisik) - not often I see them in Oslo and even rarer in Maridalen

a Goshawk (hønsehauk) in the snow

Tree Sparrows (pilfink) finding nutrition in the snow on the road in Maridalen and there were 2 locally rare House Sparrows (gråspurv) with them

Tree Sparrows

there were also a few Yellowhammers (gulspurv) in the Dale. Could this be the winter to find something rarer amongst them?

The Tree Pipit (trepiplerke) on Sunday when it did look less energetic than the previous days

and its preferred area today when surprisingly enough I did not find it

The Wheatear (steinskvett) on Sunday. I reckon this bird will survive the snow a little bit longer than the pipit but did not look for it today

the Wheatear seemed curious about a Wren (gjerdesmett) that flew in

and the Wren was equally curious about the Wheatear. Both are insect eaters but the Wren searches in places the Wheatear doesn't or couldn't which may explain why it has evolved to stay in Oslo for the winter

Oslo update

Returning to the local patch after a trip to see the specialities of Hedmark is always a bit of an anti climax but things have been quite rewarding and the weather forecast suggests more may come.

Wader passage through Maridalen is coming to end with another Ringed Plover on Sunday and just a single Wood Sandpiper today but there is still time for a Broad-billed Sandpiper to turn up. A trip to Svellet on Sunday amazingly revealed just a single Common Sandpiper (in stark contrast to the day before) but the rain still has the potential of bringing down something good.

The Lapwing situation in Maridalen is looking good. Yesterday, I discovered three broods (4,4 & 2) feeding along the lakeshore with parents in attendance and the two nests that were made after the farmer ploughed still had sitting birds. My assumption at that time was that the very first nest had failed, and that the broods were from the remaining three nests that the farmer saved. Today though there was a bird sitting on one of those nests (the one I had originally overlooked) and given that the young in the brood of 2 were slightly larger than the other 2 broods my working assumption now is that the nest that I originally thought was abandoned is the source of the 2 larger young, the two broods of 4 are the birds I saw when they hatched on Thursday and that the bird in the fourth nest was just not sitting the times I have checked on Sunday and Monday (this is possible as the female leaves the nest to feed). Time will tell but there currently still looks to be the chance for 3 more broods 😊.

Raptors have been slightly more visible with Buzzard, Osprey, Sparrowhawk, Goshawk, Kestrel and Hobby in Maridalen plus a bird that I thought at the time was my first Honey Buzzard of the year but provided a cautionary tale in trusting too much in jizz (see pictures lower down).

A couple of trip to Østensjøvannet revealed an insect hatch with lots of Black-headed Gulls, Swift, Swallows and both Martins hawking over the water and I have been diligently searching them for something rarer but a single Common Tern was the best I could come up with. Two adult Peregrines flying about together was a strange sight and perhaps a sign that the pair that breeds in Østmarka have failed.

Bird of the period though was none other than a new Maridalen species for me. No, not a House Sparrow ;-) but an Arctic Skua (tyvjo)! A most unexpected species but not the first for the Dale as one was photographed on 10 June 2017. I remember the photo appearing on Facebook with confirmation sought for species and I remember wanting confirmation of location! Today's bird was picked up over the forest ridge to the west of the valley and through the bins I thought I was looking at a falcon of some description. Picking it up in the scope proved rather difficult but when I did it was not the Hobby I expected but a skua and the jizz, extent of the white wing flask, length of tail and all dark plumage made it a clear adult dark phase Arctic. Some trees then got in the way (where I was standing was not the best place to be scanning the skies) and as I fumbled with the camera and waited for it to appear again that was the last I saw of it.

This afternoon the wind turned to the south after having previously been easterly and it rained so after dinner I headed for Svellet with high hopes. When I arrived at 18.30 it was still raining and visibility was poor but I scanned and scanned and could not find a single wader and a Common Tern was the only tern or small gull I saw. I then checked Merkja which was equally dead before I remembered to send a message to Anders about how quiet it was as we had messaged earlier in the day about checking out Svellet in the evening. He replied immediately along the lines of oh shit, I've just got here... I then headed back to Oslo and thought I would see if Maridalen had anything to offer. Twenty minutes later as I arrived in Maridalen Anders rang and I knew he had found something - a Black Tern. I considered about driving back but instead used this as motivation to find something in the Dale. It was soon clear that birds had arrived since this morning and 2 Temminck's Stint, a Redshank, a Greenshank and a pair of Velvet Scoter was a good showing. Tomorrow also looks like it could deliver but then again I am forever optimistic when it concerns birds.

what would you make of this raptor? Long tail, small protuding head, narrow wings. Well I took it to be my first Honey Buzzard (vepsevåk) of the year until..

I lightened up some photos and saw it was a Common Buzzard (musvåk). The streaking on the breast shows it is a young bird and they do have much narrower wings which has caused me problems a number of times in the past at this time of the year

one of the still sitting female Lapwings (vipe) taking a food break

one of the slightly larger Lapwing young from the brood of 2

one of the parents protecting it

here a couple of adult Lapwings chase off a Grey Heron (hegre)

the young have hatched in the Black Woodpecker (svartspett) nest and could be heard calling when dad came

these Common Scoter (svartand) rested on the lake all day on Monday but were clearly restless and waiting for night to continue their migration

A single Crane (trane) in Maridalen instead of a pair. Are they still attempting to nest after all?

first brood of Goldeneye (kvinand)

Hobby (lerkefalk)

this year seems to be very good for Icterine Warbler (gulsanger)

first Mallard (stokkand) brood

adullt Peregrine (vandrefalk) at Østensjøvannet

both adults together

Little Ringed (dverglo) and Ringed Plover (sandlo) together in Maridalen - this has I think only been witnessed once before

Starlings (stær) are a common breeder in Maridalen usually using old woodpecker holes or nestboxes but this one has squeezed into a hole in the church ruins

the 1st summer White-fronted Goose (tundragås) looks like it will stay the summer and moult at Østensjøvannet

a Wren (gjerdesmett) visiting its tiny and very open nest

a male Orange tip Butterfly (aurorasommerfugl)

the scene at Østensjøvannet with insect hawking Black-headed Gulls (hettemåke)