Great snipe!

Took the kids out after school for a picnic tea at Klarningen. We were hoping for some rain - a novelty these days - but we just missed it. Klarningen was quiet (well, until we arrived); Temminck's stint (3), ruff (3) and wood sandpiper (15). I kept shushing over-the-top exuberance and eventually heard a distant grasshopper warbler (by the river?). At 1720 I heard a possible great snipe!! The kids sat quietly for a while but the bird did not call again and in the end we had to get home.

Luckily I was able to get back again for dusk and try and confirm the record. A flock of 38 goldeneye flying by must have been migrating. My return trip paid off handsomely when a quail started singing at dusk, probably from across the river. I was starting to have doubts about the great snipe, when just after 2130 a bird started bibbling strongly for about five minutes. There were probably two birds in the end with singing from two different locations, although I never heard both at the same time. A great BK tick and perhaps the first singing spring bird ever, Klarningen produces the goods yet again. On the way home I bumped into a tawny owl on a fencepost.