World Bird day May 9-2020

This was the first time I decided to participate this day fully and put my observations on E-bird. E-bird had made some advertisement about breaking the world record for the amount of species seen during a full day (around the globe). My two friends Claes and Per came along.

We started the one hour drive from Örebro to the northern part of Lake Vättern where there are some good spots for migrating birds, mostly waterfowl and other birds related to water. At 5 o'clock we began scanning the surface and air just above it. We had great luck with the weather as there was only a slight breeze and scattered clouds. Vättern is a beautiful lake with its own archipelago. 

Bird of the day, at least at this spot was a Arctic Skua (Jaeger) light morph, that came close and flew more or less above us. Other good birds here were a couple of hunting European Hobbies. Migrating birds further out included 12 Whimbrels, 40 Common Scooters and 2 Velvet Scooters. A few resting Red-throated and Black-throated Loons also gave good views.

We then drove into a forest area not much further away. A surprising group of 10 Parrot Crossbills (no photo) was a very nice and unusual meeting. Weather was nice and my friends Claes and Per enjoyed the forest walk. A nest building Blackcap was my only photo here.

Later on we arrived to the wetland areas around Kvismaren. Many good birds here, Black Tern, Little Gull, Spotted Redshank and several glorious Ruff. Incredible how the same species can have such a big variation in plumage.

A few Wood Sandpipers came close as did the very common Laughing Gull and the not so common (Eu.) Moorhen. At a small lake this female Goldeneye did not like my presence because of her nest.

Trying to see as many species as possible means you need to visit different habitats, so we now continued to a more park like environment with some open areas as well. Common species as Eu. Nuthatch and Yellowhammer (female) were seen. 

Örebro is blessed with many different wetlands and some of them support quite a few pairs of Slavonian (Horned) Grebes which is a stunning bird, no doubt. In these areas is the Reed Bunting a decently common sighting. 

We had a good day and enjoyed our company (despite the Covid 19) and spotted 114 species in 13 hours.

Leif Rydell