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Friday, October 9, 2009

Birding - 09/10/09

Went for a walk with Ma B and the kids down nearby Sinarpsdalen before lunch. A flock of 15-odd common crossbills performed well for us, giving great views.

In the late afternoon, with a light northerly and sunny skies, I checked out what was moving at Klarningen for an hour and a half. This site is properly outside the peninsula that I live on and the motorway acts as a corridor south. I was about to learn that autumn passage largely bypasses my house and the coastal sites I regularly bird! Good numbers of buzzard were on the move, I counted 59 thermalling to gain height to cross the barrier of the Hallandåsen. A flock of 45 cranes nervously thermalling to do the same, was swiftly followed by another flock of 60. There goes my theory that cranes are less easy to spot in the autumn as they head south!! Big skeins of geese (almost certainly barnacles on flock shape) were also moving south but way out to the east.

On the ground house sparrow (20) was new for the site, a flock of 39 wigeon was good, three snipe still remain but no sign of any jack snipe again. Reed bunting (12) and skylark (6) numbers have dropped off. Everything seems to be in a rush to leave Sweden this year, it was the same in Poland recently.

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