The fantastic Mr Ekenberg!

Yesterday at Flytermossen, amid the rain and cacophony of water rails and Acro warblers I thought I could hear the chatter-grunting of a great reed warbler right at the back of the pool. So this morning the pre-breakfast session took me back there in much better weather. Sure enough as I approached the reedbed the bird was singing close by - result! Great reed warbler is a good bird for BK and follows on from my first record in May last year. I wonder if they are regularly through in May these days? On the pool three pochards were nice, always scarce in BK, and a thrush nightingale was belting out its song.

Checked out the rev, which true to current form was rather quiet. Two Sandwich terns were good to see, my first this month. Offshore things were moving on a small-scale; barnacle goose (37), common scoter (16), velvet scoter (16) and red-throated diver (12). And so to home. I put the news out about the great reed warbler and went to muck out the car - a much over-due and rather unpleasant job. Martin Ekenberg rang me for directions to the warbler and as I chipped congealed sweets and soggy biscuits from the livestock area of the car I idly wondered if he would find something I had missed. Martin lives in the village and is an active local lister in the NW Skåne region (currently topping the Microbirding NW Skåne league for the year), he has been known to find a good bird or two...

The phone rang!

Look what Martin found!

Collared flycatcher is a very scarce spring over-shoot in our neck of the woods, last seen in BK in 1977 (I was 12 and lived in another country then).

These poor shots show most of the important bits; nice large white patch above the bill, full white collar, large white patch at base of primaries. No worries about this one being a hybrid! Excellent find Mr Ekenberg.

Yes, the phone rang and it was Martin, he was watching a spanking adult male collared flycatcher at Flytermossen. Throwing the hoover and the shovel out of the car I zoomed off and arrived to find the bird (and Martin) waiting patiently. Luckily it was not where I had been birding in the morning, otherwise I would have been a bit miffed! We watched the bird for ten minutes and then it flew to the island in the lake and showed rather poorly for the slowly increasing crowd before coming back to the roadside for the photos above. Great twitch, superb bird.

Back at home I finished off the car and then we all headed out to walk the coast between Vejbystrand and Ranarpsstrand. Counted breeding birds mostly, but also recorded 1-2 turnstone, an avocet and there were unusual numbers of sand martins about.

Cute