Walking the kids

The kids loved this day-active hedgehog, because the nights are so short in the summer we are used to seeing them out early in the evening but this mid-morning individual was a little unusual.

Decided to give the kids a big walk today, so we drove down to Båstad and walked back from the coast up Sinarpsdalen, about 8 km and they were still running about when we got home! Båstad was worth a quick look with a nice summer-plumaged Slavonian grebe, at least ten red-necked grebes and small numbers of common and velvet scoter. A cool NW wind soon drove us inland. Sinarpsdalen was quiet although single singing tree pipit and willow warbler were year-ticks. Other notables included a flyover green sandpiper and a brief hawfinch.

I went back for the car later and checked out Klarningen for an hour. Viewing is difficult here in the afternoon but I decided to stick it out for an hour to see what was moving. This paid off with first a female merlin and then a superb male, as well as a nice male marsh harrier (both year-ticks). Ten lesser black-backed gulls was a good number and out on the newly-sown fields a lemon-yellow flava yellow wagtail was not difficult to spot amongst the feeding white wagtails.