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Monday 25 August 2014

Falsterbo


Curious way to start the post, I suppose, but this is the view from that great mig watchpoint at the south of Sweden. Close flyers included Osprey, Marsh Harrier and Honey Buzzard (a couple out of several hundred!), Sparrowhawk and Kestrel. Those are only the raptors in a steady stream of pipits, wagtails, hirundines, swifts, ducks, waders ... what a place! Shame about the earliness in the season but I'm sure in peak times it's outrageous. The Honeys were mostly headed high SW towards Denmark, but a couple made their way to the end of the point at least. We did miss a black kite, but since I only had bins with me and I've seen one or two black kites (!) I wasn't that upset about it.


Falsterbo itself is an easy half hour drive south of Malmo where we stayed, and you can park easily close to the action,. In fact there was a significant watch just at the entrance to the town on some flat land - maybe a better location for raptor watching in some weather conditions? Don't know but there were 20+ scopes in action there.

Here on the golf course there was the added bonus of small sandy islands which pulled in some Godwit (Bar-t), Dunlin, Common Sand, Lapwing. Wigeon and Shoveler were there as were Shelduck. Lots of Cormorant moved south but migrants? up here I have no idea - maybe. It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours anyway. Lerz agreed, as she spent much of the time napping on the warm grass out of the wind!



Apart from the species make-up there was a lot of familiar features - similar plant life, and birding around the edge of links golf!

Tuesday 19 August 2014

Temperature drop

First morning under 10 degrees this morning and not a Common Tern in sight. Meadow Pipits noticeably moving and a Tree Pipit too. Yesterday a flock of House Martins moved through and there were some more this morning, though not so obviously moving. Also in were some RB Mergansers (6) and a flock of 13 Shelducks which flew over towards the harbour was interesting.


Friday 15 August 2014

Still quiet

One swallow passed over this morning in the brief 30 minutes I was there. nice roost of gulls and terns on the gantry, but nothing obviously interesting



Monday 11 August 2014

Stubborn Snipe

A Snipe battling into the teeth of a gale that was hard to stand still in this morning was an amazing sight. Some incredible forces must be present to impel the poor thing into that behaviour. Makes you wonder about all kinds of things - how much do we choose and how much are we all just captives of our own internal impulses? At least it was going somewhere for something. Why on earth was I there?

A nice hard-to-come-by year tick whichever way you look at it.

</philosophical interlude>

Thursday 7 August 2014

Flybys

Vismig is till only beginning to dribble through in the form of Woodpigs, Swallows and Wagtails. a couple of nice flybys this morning though involved twos of Stock Dove and Raven - both local species.