Sweden, June 2016 - happy families

Barnacle Geese breeding pretty much next door

 
...of the human and avian kinds. After a fine five days with the Sonden-Cooks, the second half of the trip was spent with our dear friends the Johansson-Sadris (double-barreled or nothing for us) a little further up the coast. But for a while in Gothenburg at either end of the trip, we spent it all in the idyllic and blissful surrounds of St Varholmen, an island in the archipelago west of the city with summer houses scattered along its rocky paths and sheltered inlets.

Kestrel family in the box behind the house 

 

(the male returning with a vole)

 
Idyllic and blissful pretty much sums it up; we were there for Midsommar and so got to share this celebration with the whole island, which involved the making and wearing of flower crowns, singing traditional songs and dancing round the maypole in the warm Swedish sunshine (Edward Woodward beware) among other simple pleasures. But most enjoyably it involved quality time with this wonderful family - our old friends Houman and Susanne, and our new ones Xander, Aurora and Freja. What a blast we had.

The clan in front of the cottage

 

Eider creches - lots of females and young on and around the island

 

Yes, it was cold, yes, there were jellyfish, and no, we didn't care

Sweden, June 2016 - coastal Skåne

Despite crappy weather on the available day, Paul, Amity and I managed a few hours enjoyable birding, mostly along the coastal stretch of NW Skåne (west of Ängelholm), and it was great to have a whistlestop tour of what will effectively be Paul's extended patch when he moves out there later in the year. Lots of wader quality, including summer-plumage Spotted Redshanks, Ruff and Wood Sandpipers among many others, plus Hobby, Icterine Warbler, a vocal Thrush Nightingale and various other summer visitors.

It's been a few years since I last saw Paul, during which time I ended my write-up of finding England's first (live) Brünnich's Guillemot with a throwaway comment about Blue Rock Thrush next. Incredibly, just weeks after it was published in the Filey Bird Report, Paul then went and found Sweden's fourth Blue Rock Thrush (and first away from Gotland) in 2014....

 

Sweden, June 2016 - the locals

Honey-buzzard over the house

 

Our wonderful hosts for the first half of the trip, Paul, Marianne and Åsa

 

Crane at a nearby lake....

 

.... the top of the lake

 

Female Red-backed Shrike at breeding site in a nearby young conifer clearing 

 

.... and the male

 

The other HB

 

Europaea Nuthatch - crap photo but sooo  much paler than UK birds

Sweden, June 2016 - neighbours from heaven

'By the way, there's Spotted Flycatchers nesting on your house' was an ideal stage-setter from Paul before we arrived, and they fast became the stars of the show. Nesting on a specially-installed ledge just below the apex of the roof - apparently many rural Swedish properties have them, as they're considered good luck, and are justly valued for their biting insect-catching skills - the adults worked tirelessly to feed their four young, and were permanent fixtures alongside us in the garden.

Our accommodation for the trip - a 1750s farmhouse (right), which we shared with the Spotted Flycatchers and also a family of Great Tits nesting in a crack in the wall

Sweden, June 2016 - garden warblers

As in, passerines that warble in the vicinity of garden.... Wood Warblers were a real treat, being well distributed in the woods nearby; this family were very entertaining with both parents attending these three fledged juveniles, singing and contact-calling constantly while tracking down prey items.

Robins were also well scattered, and it was interesting to recall how much more 'grey and orange' these continental birds are in advance of their arrival in Filey in the autumn.

This Garden Warbler, meanwhile, was the noisiest and most paranoid I've ever encountered - breeding in the garden (as might be expected), merely stepping outside the front door incurred its loud and scolding wrath, and it actively tracked any perceived threat by following any unassuming human around; impressive parenting skills.

Sweden, June 2016 - garden mini-beasts

Birds and more to follow, but for now a couple of beautiful insects that happened to drop by outside the door - Northern Emerald and Small pearl-bordered Fritillary.

Sweden, June 2016 - garden beasts

Eurasian Elk (or Moose if you prefer), watching us eat breakfast, watching it eat breakfast

 
Amity and I have just returned from a mighty fine ten days or so in Sweden - a country which we love and have been lucky to visit various times (although not for some years) - and no, we really didn't want to come back, and yes, we would've stayed there if we could have. The trip was mostly about humans, specifically dear friends and their wonderful kids, and hence the opportunities to chase birds and wildlife were largely incidental, but there was still plenty of nature to enjoy.

Roe Deer, another close-up garden visitor - all were noticeably paler and more ginger-coloured than ours

 
We spent the first five days out in the sticks east of Ängelholm - out in the sticks in the true Swedish sense, hidden away via miles of tracks through a wonderfully mixed, expansive forest - with Paul and Äsa and their irresistible firecracker of a daughter, 20-month-old Marianne. But for a few hours birding around coastal NW Skåne and a day trip to Malmö, it was all about the idyllic homestead - and the equally idyllic surroundings of the garden, adjoining forest tracks and nearby clearings.

After arriving long after dark, catching up and drinking well into the early hours (and thus past dawn), we were woken from our bed in our 18th century cottage (more of that later) by Paul casually announcing "guys, there's an Elk in the garden", which kind of set the tone for the trip.

Surrounded by tits

And as anyone who has seen the regional breakdown of referendum voting percentages knows, that's a fact. In an effort to remind the surviving non-zombies among us of anything vaguely not shit about this particularly poisonous corner of Little Britain, here's a Long-tailed Tit, fresh out of the nest here in Filey.