A steppe too far!

Tilting at windmills. Twitching at the moment seems to be a quixotic affair. Another dip racked up and so soon after the pine grosbeak debacle...

An enormous day for white-tailed eagles with 13 recorded in total. Most over fields inland south of Rönnen.

Met up with Terry again this morning. A very cold dawn greeted us at our rendezvous at Lund and we quickly made our way to the nearby area that has been frequented by a young steppe eagle this winter. Our strategy was that on New Years Day, there would be heaps of birders eager to get this rare on their year-list and we would benefit by a quick find by spotters who knew this bird and its habits and be on our way. We saw no-one for three hours! We also managed to miss the steppe eagle, having to make do with a couple of white-tailed eagles instead. However the area was not a bad place to kick off the year-list and we saw some nice birds including; white-fronted goose (8), taiga bean goose (4+), barnacle goose (175), goshawk (1) and common crossbill (15).

Leaving the area we drove north onto more familiar territory, the arable fields south of Rönnen, to hunt for golden eagle and perhaps the wandering gyr falcon. We had no trouble finding a golden eagle last time we tried here but we failed today. The good news though was that Terry spotted the adult gyr falcon perched just 50 metres from the road at Lönhult, no doubt his blog will feature the photos he managed from the car shortly (go look). The bird sat nicely for us for five minutes, moved to another perch further way and then did a huge circuit around us heading for Farhult. Fantastic encounter. Also on the circuit we had a 1K goshawk (our second of the day), rough-legged buzzard (2) and a few redwing.

In the last light of the day we checked Farhult quickly (two Slavonian grebe and a frozen bay) and then Rönnen (the last white-tailed eagle of the day). But after a brave struggle against sleep deprivation and the -8 degree temperature (with added wind-chill), Terry started to look a bit peaky; it was time to get him back on the train to Denmark! Another good day out.