Crane fly

This lone crane circled the field at Klarningen a few times but decided not to land in the end and continued on north.

Finally a day in the field. Kicked off at Klarningen which was rather quiet but enjoyed a reasonable amount of passing trade which made it all worthwhile. Wildfowl on the ground included three female pintail, eight shoveler (mostly male) and the elusive male garganey. Four coot have taken up residence, which I am slightly sad to say excites me greatly, it feels like a proper wetland now! Waders present included a single little ringed plover, two ruff and two greenshank. Many of these had moved on by the time I left though. Flybys included a single crane, an osprey and a 2K little gull.

Petersberg produced my first BK crested newt this morning. This site is slated for development if they ever finish the tunnel under Hallandsåsen, be interesting to read the Environmental impact assessment. Do not build on it - would be my advice. Unmanaged land and open water are at a premium in BK.

Next stop was Petersberg (the hunt for a BK water rail continues...). A singing male redpoll was an over-looked year-tick here but the main action came from the herps, with a fiesty grass snake and a great crested newt in the bag (the latter my first in Sweden). Also moor frog singing here. In 2012 I am targetting the herps of southern Sweden as well as birding and doing my dragonfly atlas work so it should be interesting (for me anyway!).

A quick look at Stensåns mynning revealed a number of scoter offshore but the easterly wind was cutting up the surface and made detailed examination of the birds difficult. If we get a calm day I will go back though, scoter numbers are good along this stretch and there must be something rare lurking in amongst them. From here I could see terns off Båstad so I checked it out. Two Sandwich terns were resting on offshore rocks and hawking over the sea were at least 13 common terns. Nice to have them back. A boat put up the duck offshore and revealed at least one Slavonian grebe panicking amongst the velvet scoter.

Had lunch up at Salmon Heights (Salomonhög), not a bad place for a house really, drumming snipe and displaying curlew overhead in the garden, very atmospheric. Nearby I had a pair of marsh harrier (breeders or migrating birds?). Last stop of the day was the tiny Lönhult dämm, this site rarely fails to surprise me and today it produced my first common sandpiper of the year.