Birds everywhere

I must admit I have been thinking that things have gone a bit quiet birdwise here in BK of late. But yesterday when I read Leif Dehlin's returns from Ripagården, I was pleased to note that I may well be wrong and not a little gripped off too. So with a free morning together Mrs B and I headed out that way.

Only my second Gröthögarna great grey shrike, showed well but briefly before melting away.

First stop of the day was at Vråen, just before Ripagården, the bunting/finch flock was right up against the farmhouse this morning but behaved reasonably well and luckily the farmer here is happy that the crop sown for birds attracts both birds and birders! We got a few glimpses of Lapland bunting as the birds repeatedly spooked into the trees and then two flew out over our heads, calling away and landed conveniently on the road for 'scope views. Also here five reed buntings. The rest of a chilly hour here was spent cursing at a flock of 40-odd redpoll, sure enough after an hour a good Arctic redpoll had been processed but as always I wonder how many there really were. I am not sure there is a more frustrating exercise than trying to determine Arctic from mealy redpoll. Mrs B could be heard chortling behind me as my invective got steadily more fruity.

A young white-tailed eagle, up in the air over Ripagården with an adult this morning.

Ripagården had a big flock of 200 mallard which included just one teal and two wigeon. A snowy walk around Gröthögarna produced more notable birds; red-throated diver (1 south), redwing (2, my first for ages), goldcrest (5) and best of all a great grey shrike. Out on Tjällran was at least one purple sandpiper. Back at Ripagården a scan of the bay revealed a black-throated diver (1), two splendid white-tailed eagles and in the wood behind we could hear black woodpecker. Driving back past Vråen we had a gang of four snow buntings and nearby a single skylark, the latter looking set to overwinter. Great walk, packed with great birds.

The adult white-tailed eagle.