2010 review

It has been very hard to sit down and write a review of a year which started with the death of our lovely youngest daughter Nelly. Team B is still dealing with this huge loss but we are doing well. Spending time in the field looking at nature has always been important to me at difficult times like this and despite the loss (or perhaps even because of it) 2010 produced a crop of great birds. Sometimes when a good bird appeared in my scope to lift me from some dark mood, it was hard not to attribute it to the spirit of Nelly looking over me.

Patch highlights
2010 was book-ended by harsh winter weather. Despite this spring kicked off early with the first ringed plovers and lapwings arriving by the end of February. March brought early records of crane, woodlark, song thrush and wheatear for me, but the easy highlight was Håkan's male king eider at Grytskären. My second and a species I still need to find for myself in BK.

Things really got going in May and the good birds just kept coming. A singing great reed warbler at Torekov got Ekenberg into the field the next day and he found us a superb male collared flycatcher nearby. Bluethroats arrived the next day, a much-wanted BK tick for me. A migrating white stork over Klarningen on the 14th rounded off the month in BK. It had been just as good if not better offpatch though (see later).

Collared flycatcher, a superb male found by Martin Ekenberg at Torekov whilst twitching a great reed warbler that I found the day before. Bird of the year in BK and only the second record.

Another May highlight was a good drop-out of singing male bluethroats. Found my first BK bird on the 11th and followed-up with four on Gröthögarna a few days later.

Summer saw me volunteering to do eight squares in BK for the Skåne dragonfly atlas and a fair amount of time was spent swinging the net and sinking into bogs. Birds during this period included a flyby great egret (another BK tick) at Gröthögarna in June and I actually saw a quail. August saw return passage that produced my first BK garganey and black tern. A late ortolan in mid September was likewise new for me and two red-throated pipits in the month were good. One of my most enjoyable finds came in October with the brief showing of a red-footed falcon at Torekov. A westerly gale in October produced most of the seabirds that I had missed earlier on but I finished the year missing Manx shearwater and Sabine's gull. Winter brought good flocks of mealy redpolls this year and I spent hours looking at them which produced a few good Arctic redpolls and plenty of question marks.

One of the dragonfly highlights in BK this year was my first Swedish Gomphus vulgatissimus at Klarningen.

This October IK red-foot was perhaps my most enjoyable find of the year. Picked up hunting over Torekov golfcourse and relocated at Perstorp close to the site of my hawk owl in 2009. A powerful set of powerlines. Roller next please.

I finished the year on 219, one short of my 2009 total. 2010 was not without its birds that 'got away' in BK and I had fleeting probable encounters with great snipe, aquatic warbler and American golden plover. Hope to convert these another day...

Offpatch highlights
Offpatch the year started with the regular gyr falcon at Lönhult on a New Year's day-out with Terry Townshend. Shortly afterwards a trip to Småland produced my first Swedish black grouse and a fine pine grosbeak.

Again May was superb. Dotterel dropped out along with bluethroat, but there were no suitable fields in BK as usual. Instead I found myself watching a flock of dotterel just 800 metres from the BK boundary. Whilst here my first Swedish Montagu's harrier flew through. Both would have been BK ticks! Finding good birds started to become the norm with a marsh sandpiper on the 9th and a pectoral sandpiper on the 11th. Twitching produced my first Savi's warbler in Sweden at Farhult on the 17th.

My birthday treat in May was finding a superb adult summer plumage marsh sandpiper at Sandön.

Two days later I completed a nice wader double by finding this pectoral sandpiper at Hasslarps dammar. Mid May was confirmed as a glorious personal purple patch. Epic stuff.

A family holiday to Gotland in May produced a treasure trove of new birds.

A trip to Gotland with Team Benstead produced a huge number of great birds including yellow-billed diver, Caspian tern corncrake, penduline tit and greenish warbler. Birding Copenhagen's Terry Townshend was packing his bags for China so we went on a very successful farewell roadtrip to Öland in mid June. We started the trip at Ravlunda, the heath and surrounding woodland here were fantastic, coughing up bee-eater, tawny pipit, firecrest, golden oriole and Montagu's harrier. Öland produced great views of barred warbler and fantastic birding as usual. On the way home we picked up a river warbler at Kalmar. Back in NW Skåne the end of June produced Terek sandpiper and green-winged teal at Rönnen.

Rönnen produced a great double in the last week of June (a magical week here), this Terek sandpiper was just a few hundred metres from a green-winged teal. Both were Swedish ticks for me.

Autumn was quiet offpatch, although finding four red-necked phalaropes at Rönnen in August was good. Just ten metres offpatch at Vejbystrand I found my first Swedish shorelark in October. October offpatch was dominated though by a splendid trip with Team Benstead to Öland. Aside from the mind-blowing black-throated accentor pictured below we also saw red pahalarope, dusky warbler and steppe eagle. The year-ended with the desperate dipping of a japonicus buff-bellied pipit, my first Mediterranean gull of the year was scant consolation.

I could not resist a weekend on Öland with the team in October, timed to perfection we arrived for the last day of the black-throated accentor's stay. Siberian next?

Overseas highlights

An enjoyable but very wet trip to Sabah in January produced some great amphibians moments. Although not a novel species the huge breeding gathering of jade tree frogs at Poring was an impressive spectacle.

Hard on the heels of Sabah came a trip to central India. This savannah nightjar was one of several nightjar species recorded during the trip. Nightbirds featured in a solo extension to see forest owlet at the end of the trip.

A trip to Jordan in April, came at a difficult time but visiting the incomparable Petra was fantastic. Good birds here too with great views of Sinai rosefinch.

Jordan produced some great birds. The highlight being five Hume's owl at Dana and Little Petra.

A day on the Elbe may not have produced the wanted dragonfly species but was surprisingly good for birds. Nice to see black kites and we also had great views of European beaver.

Another highlight of our summer holiday on the continent was finding this white-spotted bluethroat youngster in the saltmarshes of the Île de Ré. Other birds here included Scop's owl and the category C sacred ibises.

An autumn bulb trip to Georgia in September produced some great migrating raptor moments, such as regular lesser spotted eagles. It also allowed me to finally catch up with one of my WP nemesis species - Caucasian black grouse.

2011?
High on the 'most wanted' list for BK remain spotted crake, Mediterranean gull, Caspian tern, firecrest and two-barred crossbill. Will any of these fall in 2011? Klarningen tipped last year to produce the goods finally looks like it is holding water and should start to live up to its inevitable promise. It should be exciting.

Goodbye Nelly B

The family gathered from far and wide on Friday, to help us say our last goodbye to Nelly. We all gathered at Torekov to take the boat out into deeper water. The afternoon was sunny, with a brisk westerly, that made for a lumpy ride out into the lee of Hallands Väderö that the kids thought was very exciting. In this achingly beautiful spot we said a few words and then we lowered the biodegradeable urn over the side. As the urn sank, everyone dropped decorated and inscribed rocks over the side and we had a little cry before heading back to Torekov.

A good kind of monkey to have on your back

Nelly B

We received the preliminary results concerning Nelly's death this week. Nelly tested positive for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) - as did our other two children. All were quite poorly with this common winter virus, but for some reason Nelly could not cope with it and died in her sleep just hours after being checked out by our GP. RSV can be bad in small babies but is rarely fatal. There was presumably some hidden defect in Nelly that led to her death, but I suspect we will never know what it was.

Defect or not, for me Nelly was a perfect little daughter and I cannot describe how much we all miss her. She completed our little gang when she arrived in 2008, in a way we could not have anticipated. Beautiful, bright and easy-going, her death has left a huge void in our lives and things will be a struggle for a long time to come I suspect.

Thanks to everyone who has dropped in, called, written and sent messages of support, I will get round to writing to you all soon. Nelly will be cremated quietly next week, no fuss, and we hope to have a gathering to celebrate her short but happy life in the summer.

Nelly 'Boppan' Benstead - 24/03/08 to 21/02/10

Team Benstead lost its youngest member unexpectedly this week. I may be offline for a while.