Mopping up?

The plan this rainy morning was to cruise around the peninsula picking up the birds I missed yesterday that may have been wrecked in the gale. The plan worked well at Båstad where a short search revealed the presence of a reasonably confiding red phalarope, pedalling along the shoreline at Skansenbadet. Patch year-tick and a great one to pull back. A search of the shoreline to the east produced a single chiffchaff but no other seabirds.

It was dark and the bird was flighty, this was the only shot I got!

Next stop was Kattvik harbour. I was pretty sure a little auk was holed up here but despite a good search of the harbour from various angles and walking the rocks to make sure it was not close in and out of sight I could not find it. It must have been asleep amongst the boats or even under the jetty because I walked away empty-handed only to discover later in the day that it was being seen and photographed. It looks tired so hopefully will carry on recuperating, allowing me to see it tomorrow. Also here black-throated diver (1) and another chiffchaff.

Last stop of the morning was a quick look at Torekov rev, just five grey plover (late this year) and one redshank of note.

In the afternoon we gathered up the kids from their grand-parents and took them for a detox walk between Vejbystrand and Ranarpsstrand. I invariably start this walk just off-patch from Vejbystrand, this allows walking the whole stretch with the light behind you, it would also be churlish to avoid the stretch of beach north of the harbour, it may be off-patch but it is good. Another reason is that occasionally as you walk north you can flush something good into BK. It did not work that way today, ten metres before the fence that marks the boundary a shorelark picked up and flew into the southerly wind away from BK... Rats! Walked back to get a good look at it, nice bird but just metres away from being excellent. Still it was a year-tick and my first self-found Swedish bird too.

Scuttling into BK before something worse happened, we walked the beach at Stora Hult, nothing doing here just a curlew and a red-necked grebe. Ranarpsstrand also had a red-necked grebe (arrival yesterday?), a grey plover, five snipe and three redshank. Great day.