Thursday, May 15, 2008 - Great Snipe Dip
A Great Snipe was seen in Välen this morning. The observers suggested in their report commentaries that there might be lekking tonight, which resulted in a lot of birders going there this evening. We went to the tower, mainly because that's easiest. Reed Warblers, Lapwings and Water Rail (year tick) were heard amongst others, but no Snipe. Rounded off with a couple of minutes by the nearby river, which resulted in at least three Grasshopper Warblers and a Thrush Nightingale.
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Thursday, May 15, 2008 - Nest box
I put up a nest box about two hours ago at convenient viewing distance from my balcony. Not twenty minutes later, a Pied Flycatcher arrived to inspect the estate
 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca)
Since Pied Flycatchers like nest boxes to the point that they sometimes evict other birds from them, it's not very surprising, but I expected a day's time or so to pass before any birds at all showed interest. Now I'll just have to wait and see if he liked what he saw.
I put a shoutbox in the menu to the right, just above the counter. Feel free to use it! I like feedback and the post comment thingy is rather cumbersome in my opinion.
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - No Little Egret
The Little Egret at Båtafjorden had apparently moved on or found a good hiding place before we got there, so we didn't see it. Year ticked Corn Crake though and had for example Shoveler, Garganey, Ruff, Spotted Redshank, Marsh Harrier and Sedge Warbler, so the time there was well spent at least.
Edit: right now, 21:43, the damn bird was reported some distance west of where we were. Silly :(
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - Hårssjön and Brudarebacken
Took a trip to Hårssjön this morning. We had for example Reed Warbler, Grasshopper Warbler, Jay, Coal Tit, Little Grebe and a possible Goldfinch. Hoped half-heartedly for Marsh Warbler, Water Rail or Hobby, but they refused to show up.
 Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaecus)
Afterwards we stopped by Brudarebacken and saw a Common Buzzard at very nice distance flying pretty close to the hilltop (would have been even nicer if we had actually been on the hill and not in the parking lot below). We also had Raven, Whinchat and Goldcrest.
In an hour from now, we're leaving for Båtafjorden to check on a reported Little Egret. As some of the readers might recall, we missed a Little Egret in the very same spot by a few hours in May last year. Excitement! The proper birding season is here :)
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Sunday, May 11, 2008 - Riverside stroll
Instead of a trip for Dotterel we took an afternoon walk along river Lärjeån (the Lärje river). As the river valley is just behind my house I went out a bit before we were supposed to meet and tried to get pics of Wood Warbler. Also found a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.
 Wood Warbler (Phylloscopus sibilatrix)
 Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos minor)
When we got down to the river, the first birds we observed were the resident Mandarin Ducks, which I had known about for a long time but never seen before. No tick though, since they've obviously escaped from a park or suchlike.
 Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata) Feral couple (part of the female is visible top center)
We had hoped to year tick Spotted Flycatcher but failed, so no year ticks (except Mandarin Duck) but some month- and year-month ticks. The strangest observation was a Yellowhammer, quite out of it's element, perching on a branch near the water surface.
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Sunday, May 11, 2008 - second consecutive Halland saturday
This time we focused on the Getterön area, starting at the westernmost point, known as 'Gubbanäsan' (en: old man's nose). Not optimal weather for sea migration watching (way too nice) but not entirely empty. Year ticked Grasshopper Warbler on the way out and Razorbill while there.
 Grasshopper Warbler (Locustella naevia) Digiscoped with DSLR.
After Gubbanäsan we worked our way back towards the Getterön center, stopping here and there. Year ticked Icterine Warbĺer at Bengtssons häck (en: Bengtsson's hedge), basically a broadleaf grove surrounded by low pines and junipers, renown for attracting rare passerines such as Yellow-browed Warbler and Firecrest. We also saw a calling Cuckoo flying past - a rather rare event. I photographed it, but the pictures didn't turn out very good; the bird in the picture could just as well be a Kestrel or similar.
 Sandwich Tern (Sterna sandvicensis)
At the west end of the main Getterön area we found a Black-tailed Godwit, which was my fourth year tick for the day. There were also quite a lot of warblers and some Lapwings with chicks.
 Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa) DSLR-digiscoped.
In just a week, the number of geese had gotten notably lower, since most of the Barnacle Geese had moved on. More waders had arrived though, along with for example Housemartins and Thrush Nightingales. An Egyptian Goose had been reported from there the day before but seemed to have moved to a lake in the next county. Year ticked Dunlin.
 Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata)
On the way home we spent some time in the tower by Tjolöholm castle. Not very much interesting apart from a trio of Bar-tailed Godwits (year tick six) and an increase in raptors (Common Buzzard, Marsh Harrier, Osprey).
No life ticks this time, but I'm quite satisfied with six year ticks, which brings the total up to 178. This year's list will most probably be a new record since last year's was 210.
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Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - Warm morning at Kråkudden
Spent the morning at Kråkudden, Hönö. We had our minds set on migrating Bluethroat with no luck. The warblers had arrived though and we had all the common day-active species on the way out to the shelter, including a slightly early Garden Warbler (year tick). Almost no wind today so we stood on the cliffs south of the shelters instead of inside.
 Rock Pipit (Anthus petrosus)
Since there weren't much wind, most of the migrating birds flew past at great distance. Luckily, I had my new scope and for example managed to pick out a group of Red-throated Divers as they rose from behind the horizon. Nice observations today: Migrating Merlin and Marsh Harrier, European Shag (year tick) and Common Cuckoo (year tick).
Afterwards we went to see the Penduline Tit which is building a nest in about the same spot along river Säveån as last year. Saw it for a short moment while it stopped by the nest, but most of the time we only heard it.
 Penduline Tit-nest. Photographed with digital SLR through scope.
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Monday, May 5, 2008 - Halland - Here, there and back again.
Saturday, May 3rd. We left at 4 in the morning and went all the way to Mellbystrand in southern Halland. Arrived a bit past six. The people already there told us we were a bit late and that migration activity had already peaked. A bit discouraged...
Not before long, however, someone called out Red-throated Divers. Accustomed to Hönö conditions, I began scanning the horizon. But the divers came in hundreds, several hundred feet above us in a large cloud. After a while a White-billed Diver/ Yellow-billed Loon was spotted among them, being obviously larger and with proportionally larger feet. First life-tick of the day. A little while later a passerine flew by heading north. At first I thought it was just a wagtail, but with help of the more seasoned twitchers we could identify it as a Tawny Pipit. Life tick two was a fact.
Some time passed, a good number of year ticks ticked in (hur hur). Then reports of Pomarine Skua heading south began to come in (by BMS, Bird Message Service, a mobile phone service thingy administered by Club 300). After a while it was apparent the skua would eventually get to our location. An exciting half hour later it was spotted, firmly heading south at reasonable range. Very nice third life tick of the day!
 Reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus)
After Mellbystrand we went to Trönninge ängar, a classic spot for nesting Penduline Tit, but we didn't find any. Lots of ducks and geese though and some more year ticks.
 Spotted Redshank (Tringa erythropus)
The most unusual year tick there was a very early lone Swift. The climate changes becomes apparent if one turns to phenology records...
 Swift (Apus apus)
We missed some good stuff such as Short-toed Lark somewhere along the way, but at least the year ticks and nice observations kept coming in.
 Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo)
We also stopped by Getterön to have a well earned muffin and more than 1500 Barnacle Geese. Just as last year (see May 19 2007 I think) we had a posing Sedge Warbler and the Barn Swallows nesting in the hide.
 Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus)
 Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)
After a last stop at Båtafjorden we could count to a total of around 95 species seen in a day. Had we felt more twitchy or started out earlier (fat chance) the tally could have been higher, but still a damn good result in my opinion. And some rather nice pictures too.
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Sunday, May 4, 2008 - Evening trip with unexpected year tick
We set out with Great Snipe in mind this evening. There has been some activity of the sort in Halland this weekend but we got none up here. At Ragnhildsholmen, however, we heard two very early Thrush Nightingales. We also had Snipe in several places and a Green Sandpiper at Ragnhildsholmen, but nothing exciting.
 My new scope in evening light. Photo by A. Andresen
I haven't yet had time to sort out yesterday's trip to Halland. Will do that as soon as I can. Got some nice pics and a rather splendid trio of lifers as well as a total of 18 year ticks.
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - Brudarebacken by night
I'm disrupting the chronology slightly now. Sunday was too interesting not to :)
Morning trip to Hönö. Weather and visibility bad but a bunch of year ticks none the less. The new scope was really put to the test and performed rather good. I managed to pick out male and female velvet scoters more than over more than a kilometer in drizzle and slightly foggy conditions. Fun observations were fishing Red-throated Divers in summer plumage and an Arctic Skua/Parasitic Jaeger migrating north.
In the evening I went to Brudarebacken to help setting nets for delousing. Caught nothing but as night fell we saw four Ring Ouzels far away, some Woodcocks patrolling and heard three Tawny Owls, two of which made a more seldom heard tremolo noise, commonly known as the xylophone trill, which can only be heard about 50 meters away.
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Saturday, April 26, 2008 - Torslandaviken adventures part one
Here, finally, is what we did in Torslandaviken April 22-23, or at least part of it. Will write more tonight.
Met up with D and arrived in Torslandaviken at about 6 AM. We wanted to collect lice from Linnets. A flock of over 30 had spent most of the early spring around the nearby golf course but were nowere to be seen this morning, so we went to mudderdammen (en: the dredge pond - Torslandaviken is a bay sealed off from the sea by a large deposit of dredging spoils on top of which a marsh-like environment has formed.). We put up two nets and scattered some hemp seed to lure the Linnets. They, however, persisted in flying past at higher altitudes and over the nets. We only got a Great Tit in five hours, so the expedition wasn't very successful scientifically. We got us some year ticks however (Willow Warbler, Blackcap, Sand Martin for me) and the weather was very nice, so it wasn't a wasted morning.
 Great Tit (Parus major) The catch of the day...
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Friday, April 25, 2008 - New scope
Since I earned quite a lot of money, by my standards, for the job I did in Stockholm, I decided to get a new spotting scope. I decided on a Focus naturescope WP85 a long time ago since it's really a lot of scope for that kind of money. Usually it costs around SEK 5000 bunched with a decent tripod, but yesterday I saw an ad offering a 20% discount. Acting quick is not my trademark move, but I did today :)
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Friday, April 25, 2008 - Brudarebacken yet again
Too tired now to relate at any length the story of our adventures by Torslandaviken. That has to wait until tomorrow (later today, depending on time zone...)
Instead I can tell you that I really love Brudarebacken! :)
 Stonechat (Saxicola torquata) young female.
I managed to hitch a ride to Brudarebacken and did not only get the life tick of Stonechat, but also Black Redstart and a year tick in the shape of an early Whinchat. As a nice bonus we also had six Ring Ouzels and a Kestrel eating a vole or similar. Got some pictures, but they are soo bad quality because of high ISO, too great distance for the lens and no tripod.
 Black Redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros)
It's probably not a bad idea to tell all non-Sweden dwellers that Black Redstart breeds in Sweden but isn't exactly common, while Stonechat is a semi-common guest that turns up 10-35 times a year in the country according to svwiki.
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Thursday, April 24, 2008 - Silly Stonechats
Today was the second time this week someone reported a female Stonechat in the Gothenburg area. Last time was in Torslandaviken and today at Brudarebacken. It's probably not there anymore but I might go and have a look in a couple of hours.
Also added more pictures to the Lake Hornborga entry
Later today I'll post about the adventures in Torslandaviken Tuesday to Wednesday :)
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - Previously unnoticed media exposure
This blog was recently mentioned in a list of random Gothenburg themed blogs in a newspaper here in Gothenburg. It was brought to my attention several days later by a friend who wasn't sure which paper and again by a friend who remembered which paper but not which day. Fortunately Metro (the newspaper) offer back issues in PDF-format.
 Metro, Gothenburg edition, April 18 2008, p. 12
This makes me wonder if I also have any regular readers ( I know of a few). Please comment and let me know what you think of my rants :)
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Sunday, April 20, 2008 - Lovely lovely Brudarebacken
Yesterday we decided to go to Brudarebacken this morning. Went at eight o' clock-ish and weather looked promising save for a cloud bank coming from east.
The first hour didn't give anything unusual so I took some 40 pictures of Skylarks.
 Skylark (Alauda arvensis)
A bit after nine a Ring Ouzel suddenly appeared and decided to have a sit down in a tree east of the summit. A while later, a Lapland Bunting (life tick) flew around us once and then landed out of sight . The other gentlemen decided to go look for it, but I chose to stay and guard the scopes and watched a Kestrel working it's way north over the city. I then noticed another bird seemingly a raptor, going the same way, soon it was an abvious falcon and judging from the difference in size it was a Merlin (life tick 2). By the time the others were back it was long gone, but I'm certain it really was a Merlin, despite never having seen one before.
Perhaps an hour later both the Ring Ouzel and the Lapland Bunting flew past once more. Very nice!
We also had a good number of Common Buzzards and Sparrowhawk. The weather also successively got better with more sun and less wind. Spring was really in the air. A good day at Brudarebacken!
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Saturday, April 19, 2008 - Lake Hornborga
Bus trip to Lake Hornborga, a veritable drive-in restaurant for Common Cranes heading for the rest of Scandinavia. At this time of year, however, only a few thousand are still there.
 Common Crane (Grus grus)
Embarked at 05:30 in the morning. Unholy!
The first life tick for the trip was White-fronted Goose. Also saw a Pink-footed one, but that wasn't even year-tick :)
 Black-headed Gull (Larus ridibundus)
Sadly most of us missed both the ducks that were a bit of a main event; American Wigeon and Ferruginous Duck. Two or three people who happened to still be at the tower got to see the "fudgie", but with the wigeon we were at the right locale but 200 meters away behind a hill...
 House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Life tick two was Eagle-owl in the old limestone quarry outside Skövde, 30 minutes away from the lake.
 Eurasian Eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) Photographed with SLR through scope.
All in all a nice trip with good weather, two lifers and sixteen year ticks, but the foreign ducks were no fun at all :)
 Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena)
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Sunday, March 30, 2008 - Picking up the slack
Haven't blogged in 26 days, despite three life ticks in the meantime. A bunch of decent photographies have been taken, but most of them will be uploaded next weekend or so, since I need to sleep tonight and leave for Stockholm by train early tomorrow.
But first things first. Ticked (Eurasian) Bittern in a small lake some way away from Gothenburg. Wasn't very windy that day, so one could clearly hear him breathing in several times in sequence before going boom.
Twite was ticked at Torslandaviken a week later or so. A flock of about 20 birds had been seen there frequently during the winter, but were surprisingly hard to determine even at close range. After gathering some patience we got them in our scopes and the tick was clear.
The third lifer of this entry has been a major pain since at least early december I think. The Three-toed Woodpecker of doom. I've been to the reserve Klippan to look for the apparently resident couple four or five times with no luck at all. Then, a couple of weeks ago another one shows up at the old fish farming ponds turned bird paradise Svankällan. The trip there this morning was my second attempt, the first one offering nice nature experience but no 'pecker. Since DST kicked in last night, getting to the bus in time today wasn't very fun... The tick was not a very good one, since we only heard him (which is sufficient for tickning in Sweden), but on the other hand we heard him very well, both call and drumming. It's also worth noting that we saw or heard five of the eight species of woodpecker breeding in Sweden in less than three hours. And added six ticks to my year list which is now up to 107.
 Coal Tit (Parus ater) Picture taken March 22.
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Tuesday, March 4, 2008 - Good trip to Halland.
Three life ticks during a day in Halland is not bad, but I could have gotten more if the weather had been better. Tundra Swan, Red Kite and Bearded Reedling could have been accompanied on my list by for example Hen Harrier, Golden Eagle and Rough-legged Buzzard had there been less wind, less drizzle and more thermals. Had also hoped for Snow Bunting and Shorelark, and there were probably larks in one spot, but they proved impossible to see from the tower and part of the road was flooded.
Tomorrow there will be an attempt for Three-toed Woodpecker again and also a visit to this winter's best Bittern spot.
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Saturday, March 1, 2008 - February 08: Worst birding month in a very long time
February saw a total of 13 month ticks. Not since 2005 have I ticked fewer birds in one month. There is of course an explanation; We had six performances in three weeks with my theatre club thingy and on top of that I caught an evil cold that kept me indoors for 11 days.
March has now begun and tomorrow holds a trip to Halland. With reasonable luck I could rake in five or more life ticks, but more probably only one or two.
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About Me
26 year old birder from Gothenburg, Sweden.
My goal for 2007 was get above 200 life-ticks. I managed 215 and will attempt to get to 250 in 2008. A lot harder!
Friends
• gladan
Other birding blogs•Brazilianpioneerbirder
Categories
•Local watching
•Other
•Rarities
•Travel
Last ticks
• 230: Pomarine Skua
• 229: Tawny Pipit
• 228: White-billed Diver
• 227: Black Redstart
• 226: Stonechat
• 225: Merlin
• 224: Lapland Bunting
• 223: Eurasian Eagle-owl
• 222: Greater White-fronted Goose
• 221: Three-toed Woodpecker
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