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Friday, May 1, 2009

Happy birthday Mrs B! Day 1.

When asked what treat Mrs B would like for her milestone birthday, she requested a couple of days birding with a night under canvas. She always has been my kind of wife!

So we left the kids with Ma B and headed out late morning. First stop was Eskilstorps pools on the patch (shame to waste mid-morning on driving). Here we had the first common whitethroat of the year, a migrating yellow wagtail and heard the grasshopper warbler again. Next stop was off-patch, the industrial area of Ängelholm. Here we quickly found a singing male black redstart and headed off south to look at some sites in the southern end of Sweden.

Black redstart habitat!

Injured white-fronted goose

Next stop was a sunny exploration of the Krankesjön and Vombs ängar area. At Krankesjön (a large, reed-fringed lake) we heard our first reed warbler, thrush nightingale and penduline tit of the year. Out in the large gull colony a single adult Mediterranean gull had taken up residence. We tried in vain to find black tern or little gull. Other birds of interest though included a hobby and single white-fronted and barnacle geese. Nearby Vombs ängar was amazing - a really good wet grassland with a huge number of ruff displaying (at least 50 birds in total) and goood numbers of redshank and curlew. No sign of any white storks though.

Untidy barnacle goose flock migrating east at Kåseberga in the evening, against a stiff south-east wind

Good numbers of long-tailed duck (many in full summer plumage) were encountered close-in at Kåseberga

Last stop of the day, and where we finally camped, was Kåseberga on the south coast. Here we wandered about and checked out the coastal bunker made famous by Sven Splittorff - one of Sweden's most dedicated patchworkers. We looked forward to ticking-off the man himself in the morning. Till then we had the bunker to ourselves and enjoyed great views of 220 migrating barnacle geese and some excellent long-tailed ducks loafing just offshore. Walking back on the coastal path we chivvied along four excellent yellow wagtails.

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