Good things come to those who put in the effort..

Today was another up at 0430 day. I was in the field from 0515 until 1430 and then had another hour out in the evening. Highlight was one of my very favourite birds which I was beginning to fear I would not see this year - a Wryneck and to make it even better it was in Maridalen. I permit myself to show a picture and 2 videos, the second of which has a better recording of the call which to my ears is very like Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.



Not much else at Maridalen although i did hear Black Woodpecker. Scarlet Rosefinches are starting to turn up now and although I didn't find one in Maridalen today I expect to soon. The Wryneck was seen on my evening outing.
The morning destination was Årnestangen. I was very lucky here to have just walked the couple of kilometres to the hide before it began to rain (very heavily) for 2 hours. I had a hope that this rain would ground many waders and Black Terns and Little Gulls - well dream on.

For my 9 hours of effort I was rewards by a Temminck's Stint
a few Dunlin, a very distant immature Peregrine, a Merlin, a flock of 120 Goosander, 4 Ospreys, a Garden Warbler and some Yellow Wagtails. The 2 males that I saw well appeared to be a cross between the race Thunbergi (Grey Headed Wagtail) which is the commonest race in Norway and race Flava (Blue Headed Wagtail) which does breed in southern norway. The 2 pictures below are of different birds but both show the white supercilium of flava but the head colour is the grey of thunbergi rather than the blue of flava

Additionally a singing Reed Warbler and singing icterine Warbler were year ticks taking me to 162 so far in 2010.