Another great day out with the kids

Osprey at Sandön, we had a superb adult white-tailed eagle over at Farhult today but I was too busy enjoying it to get a photo...

Headed off-patch with the kids this morning, picking up a female grey wagtail at Lindab in the village. Our first port of call was Sandön, water levels were high after the recent westerly winds but dropping already under the calm and sunny weather we enjoyed today. The forecast looked grim on Sunday, a full week of rain but we somehow got lucky. Predicting the weather in this neck of the woods seems to be fraught with difficulties.

Sandön was great. Viewing from the flagpole produced a good number of waders, including; grey plover (4), knot (11), bar-tailed godwit (17) and spotted redshank (5). Far out at sea I watched a beautiful 1K little gull messing about with the terns and it slowly made it's way to the island and dropped out of sight. We headed that way over the bridge and were treated to great views of this mint little bird, and nearby rested an equally enjoyable 1K black tern (this was one of the targets for the day, there having been up to 9 here recently - we just scraped this one in!). A single pintail was most welcome too. Bearded tits called in the reeds as we walked back to the car and Number 1 fell into the sea...

Rönnen was great too. Wildfowl included a big flock of 400 barnacle geese, as well as single shoveler and wigeon. The sandflats to the west of the island were crowded with geese and with a little patience produced some good waders. The highlight here was the brace of broad-billed sandpipers, but a little stint made me smile too. All three fed at great distance, ignoring the presence of the 50-odd dunlin feeding right beside the path... Also here; avocet (3), ringed plover (75), Temminck's stint (3), ruff (15), spotted redshank (3) and wood sandpiper (5).

Last stop was Farhult, which hosted a large crowd of barnacle geese (250), as well as plenty of sun-bathing people. We waded off down to the river-mouth end of the beach and looked around. It was hard to get close to the birds without causing disturbance but this soon became unimportant when a white-tailed eagle cruised past and put very single bird up! Great bird and nice to see in the summer. Other highlights here included a single (2K?) black-throated diver, avocet (8), grey plover (7), knot (12), ruff (1), bar-tailed godwit (11) and spotted redshank (4).

On the way home we stopped quickly at Sandön again to check for new arrivals and found a single ruff and two golden plover in residence.