Monday 27 March 2017

Adding up

Temperatures dropped to zero overnight - I find the 20C drop in temperature just as amazing as it being (+)20C in March in Norway. It ended up being warm again today but there are still remarkably few birds and the large passage of Pink-footed Geese and a few raptors that I hoped for today did not materialise.
Pink-footed Geese had continued migrating through the night and I heard a flock as I went to bed but this wasn't the start of the mass exodus from Denmark that I expected although I did note a few small flocks today.


I visited Årnestangen where rarest bird was a heard only Rock Pipit but it was exciting to see that the mighty Svellet was now ice free and already had 220 Black-headed Gulls and 300 Crows feeding on it. A few Lapwing were the only waders but hundreds of Curlew will turn up soon.

The main interest in Maridalen was non-avian with 3 adders including a black one basking in the sin, a couple of lizards and a small tortoiseshell butterfly.


The Black Adder!  This black individual is, I am told, a male 


tongue out shots just wouldn't be in focus 
except for this one but then there's that twig....



here the black male has joined a female (again so I am told)

the female


and this third individual was a lot smaller and apparantly born (hatched) last year

a lizard (brown means female?)


a Small Tortoiseshell (neslesommerfugl) catching some rays
there was the odd bird to see today including this Crane (trane)

and a few flocks of northward bound Pink-footed Geese (kortnebbgås)

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