Double whammy!

On the pretext of doing some reconnaisance ahead of tomorrow's trip around NW Skåne with Birding Copenhagen, Mrs B, Number 3 and I headed out to look for 'other people's' dotterel and great white egrets. I should know better by now I guess. Twitching is best left to the experts. We failed to find the dotterel in a very empty field, three golden plover were a small consolation indeed.

We then headed to Allerumskog. Mrs B's map-reading allowed us to take in the sights and sounds of rural Skåne at some length until we finally arrived at the wetland that has hosted a pair of great white egrets for the past five days. Imagine our pleasure when on arrival we found two dogs swimming lazily in the lake... This site was however interesting for other reasons and soon it was heads down checking out invertebrates (the egrets were probably sky-dancing above us). The easy highlight here were my first Swedish map butterflies.

The kind of maps Mrs B enjoys. Map butterflies colonised SW Skåne in the early 90s and are obviously spreading north. Not sure if they have got to BK yet?

The pool here was also good for dragonflies with teneral four-spot chasers much in evidence and a few hairy dragonflies flying about through the marginal vegetation. Nice one.

Hairy dragonfly - a Skåne tick for me

Driving home with a double-dip safely in the bag we decided to lunch at Farhult - knot (1) was a year-tick.

Farhult

Penultimate stop of the day was at Sandön where we were gob-smacked to find two white-winged black terns. [It transpired that other birders had seen them earlier but still self-found in my book]. A good reason not to carry a pager! Also here were at least eight little gulls, including a spanking adult.

Last stop of the day was a quick check on Ranarpstrand - nothing doing here really in a very quick check.

micro-tern

One good tern...

News of a white-winged tern at Sandön got me a little edgy. Having seen black tern today - it had a certain symmetry about it to go see a white-winged too. Mrs B gave the OK (an early birthday present) and I headed out the door. As I was driving past the turning to Ranarpstrand however, an inner voice told me to just check it out. I did this and found four avocet by the car park, they are regular here in early May it seems but never stick long. A patch year-tick. Driving off I felt a little better about leaving the patch to go twitching again - twice in one day.

Arriving at Sandön I was slightly concerned to find the site devoid of birders. But then I remembered I was in Sweden and went and found the bird. In the UK if the car park was empty on arrival at a twitch you would know that the bird had been killed by a cat/car/sparrowhawk or simply flown off! Here you just get to find the bird yourself. Twenty minutes later I was back on the road. First stop was on-patch at the new wetland at Klarningen. A few birds are being attracted in to the shallow pools that are already present. Highlights here were a couple of wheatears (breeding?), a pair of curlew and a single little ringed plover.

Klarningen - under construction and already attracting birds

Last stop of the day was nearby Eskilstorp pools where the grasshopper warbler was reeling away and the big surprise was an early marsh warbler.