Two year-ticks today!

This male Lestes virens was just one of a swarm noted at an off-patch site near Gånarp.

Mmmm, nice! Mrs B is starting to call me a nerd when I whip out my hand-lens and start looking at anal claspers...

The site at Gånarp, it looks very good and I will try to get back next year. Not got much of this kind of habitat in BK but searching it out is a priority. We found two possible contenders today.

After dropping off Number 1 at school the rest of Team Benstead headed off to scope out a few dragonfly sites for next year. [I have taken on 8 BK squares for the 2009-2014 Dragonfly Atlas of Skåne, which is why there has been so much dragonfly action of late.] Our first stop was Gånarp and a beautiful little site crammed with Lestes virens. One on patch last week and now this! Too much. Afterwards we headed back on patch to check out a few sites that might offer the same biotope, we kind of succeeded but no sign of any more virens. A single honey buzzard (probably a resident) was our only birdy reward.

Aeshna mixta (female) at Rönnen.

In the afternoon I jettisoned the team (who were going shopping) and headed out to do the nearby coast from Sandön to Farhult. Sandön had a scattering of waders, best of the lot was my first sanderling of the year but also notable were; grey plover (1), knot (10), dunlin (60), ruff (2), bar-tailed godwit (2), curlew (58), redshank (6) and turnstone (1).

Rönnen was quiet, the geese had taken over and I could not avoid flushing 850 barnacle geese from the paths where they were happily grazing. Clearly no-one had been birding much today, which was why I could roll up and find these dollying about on the water...

Surprise of the afternoon was not one but four red-necked phalaropes at Rönnen, my first multiple encounter in Skåne and a year-tick to boot! There are three in this photograph (honest!), taken at long range on macro setting...

Other waders at Rönnen included; avocet (13), knot (1), another sanderling, Temminck's stint (1), three spotted redshank and at least 15 wood sandpipers. Last stop of the day was Farhult, thrashed about behind the reedbed for dragonflies and then did the birds. Waders again providing the interest. Another single sanderling made me wonder if I was being followed. Also here; avocet (4), grey plover (3), knot (21), curlew sandpiper (1), dunlin (105), bar-tailed godwit (20, most flying past including one with an orange leg flag - French?), an impressive 57 redshank and 14 greenshank.