Terry and Mikael at Farhult, it is always a novelty for me to spend time in the field with people over five years old.
Terry came up again nice and early for a day out of Copenhagen. We met up at the train station at Ängelholm in the rain and headed for Rönnen, hoping for the gyr falcon. At first light we found a goshawk along the road in to the site. No joy with the big falcon sadly but we did meet Mikael Olofsson (bonus!). All three of us scanned about, finding a peregrine and three white-tailed eagles. Offshore three long-tailed ducks bobbed about.
Taking Mikael along with us, we next headed to Farhult. Plenty of birds offshore here. A big raft of tufted duck (170) and goldeneye (250), included a few scaup (6+) and pochard (5). At least seven Slavonian grebes here too and way offshore the male smew. As we watched another (or the same) goshawk (1K) flew in front of us, lightly mobbed by a hooded crow. It ended up down the far end, perched on a fence-post and as the rain had finally stopped, hung its wings down to dry. Also here another white-tailed eagle for the tally. The reedbed was alive with calls of water rail (2), bearded tit and reed bunting.
Dragging Mikael with us yet again we headed inland to look for golden eagles. Lönhult produced a rough-legged buzzard. But Mikael's knowledge of the back-roads here soon produced the goods when Terry spotted a fine sub-adult golden eagle flying along at Tursköp. Also here two more white-tailed eagles (easily my best ever day for these in NW Skåne) and another rough-legged buzzard.
White-tailed eagle high-jinks.
Love 'em! I have not got tired of seeing these guys yet.
After our successful inland mission we returned to the coast at Sandön - fairly quiet with Slavonian grebe (1), oystercatcher (11), and smew (redhead). Dropping Mikael off again at Rönnen we had time for another quick but unsuccessful scan for the gyr. It was not to be our day with this unreliable bird.
Our last few sites were on-patch. We headed to Torekov rev for purple sandpipers (9 - my first this month) and nearby had two shags on offshore rocks. A great end to the day [although when we got back we discovered that the gyr had been seen really well inland at Lönhult during the day, can't win 'em all!].
proper days spotting
ReplyDeleteHi Phil,
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great day's birding. Sounds as if you were very unlucky with the Grosbeak - it's been seen every day since you dipped and in both the morning and afternoons! Male Black-throated Thrush found today in Sweden, so stuff is slowly coming through.. Still on for 1 Jan Steppe Eagle hunt?
TT