Patch tick - grasshopper warbler

A terrible digi-scope attempt at the first spotted redshank of the year - gotta love-em (even when they're out of focus)

Hasslarps dammar - off-patch but always provides great birding when we stop off en route to the local shopping mall. It consists of former beet-factory settling ponds - it's like Cantley but without the smell. Three year-ticks here today.

Sandön (again) - water levels higher and a massive total of 82 greenshank! Probably over-looked little gulls in my haste but yesterday's birds may have moved on already.

green

Axeltorps ravine area - close to the house and rather scenic at this time of year. Grey wagtail and wood warbler breed.

Had a lot to do today with a dental appointment and the weekly shop but padded it out with some very productive spring birding. A dawn session starting at Eskilstorpstrand was the order of the day before the dentist. The beach had the annual spectacle of large numbers of red-throated divers circling high in the sky just offshore trying to summon up the courage to migrate overland to their breeding haunts. None went whilst I was watching. Last year numbers got into the thousands and a few white-billed were caught up in it too. Most of the action is just north of the boundary of the patch, but I will definitely cross the border to watch this year.

Moved on quickly to check out some nearby pools I had located using satellite images of the patch on the web. These proved to have great potential, with snipe (1) and green sandpiper (1) for starters. As I walked back to the car though I heard a grasshopper warbler reeling away from a rank field nearby - bonus! A great patch-tick and hot on the heels of the ring ouzel. Had time for a quick look at Petersberg pit on the way into town - here I had the first common sandpiper of the year.

Dental check done, I headed south and dropped in on Hasslarps dammar. This site is great and the network of pools and marginal vegetation just pulls migrants from the skies. First up was a smashing spotted redshank, feeding along the shallow edge of one of the pools. Also here was a superb male yellow wagtail. Finally got all three common hirundines in the air together - why is sand martin always the last one to fall each year here? A tiny reedbed held a lusty singing sedge warbler - that resolutely refused to show itself...

On the way to the shops I stopped off briefly at Sandön and here quickly worked through the waders. Best bird here was a fine carrion crow - we get hoodeds here but the carrion zone is not far off and so you can see 1-2 a year easily. Other highlights were a summer-plumaged bar-tailed godwit, in the company of a staggering 82 greenshank.

Got home in time to take the kids for a walk around nearby Axeltorps Ravine. I hoped for dipper but got wood warbler and grey wagtail instead. The beech woods looked superb.