finally a full day in the field

Finally a day off and a chance to catch up with a few things that have been spotted over the last week. The day started well with an icterine warbler singing from the garden! Hit Tvehöga first and took about twenty minutes to track down the singing red-breasted flycatcher, difficult amongst the noise created by all the other songbirds in this nice patch of beech forest. A quick look at Klarningen revealed a singing marsh warbler near the tower and some fluffy moorhen chicks, but little else of note.

Driving through Hulrugered on my way to check some dragonfly sites I stopped for a roadside pair of cranes and again for a mistle thrush. Bränneslätt mire was very wet and full of Odonates, my first Leucorrhina dubia and Cordulia aenea of the year were long overdue and there were plenty of the former here as usual.

Leucorrhina dubia - my first of the year.

Next stop was the pools at Bösketorp, always good for Odonates, there was plenty to look at as usual. New for the year here were Leucorrhina rubicunda  and  Coenagrion lunulatum. Birds included my first little grebe for the year (!) and a single green sandpiper.

Leucorrhinia rubicunda - note the reddish pterostigma, completely yellow costa and the larger broader abdominal spots.

Coenagrion hastulatum

 

Coenagrion lunulatum

In the afternoon I searched Vysterborg again hoping for Sympecma fusca, I had one female here last year and have yet to repeat the feat in BK... Plenty of Odos though with Libellula depressa (male, first of year) and Brachytron pratense (ditto) taking the honours. Some bird breeding evidence here as well, with young coot and shelduck being my first of the year.

Brachytron pratense at Vysterborg

Last stop of the day was the pond at Lönhult, here there were two 2K whooper swans feeding on waste seed potatoes as well as more Coenagrion lunulatum and a single Brachytron pratense.

Whopper goose or whooper swan

sick note

 

Great to be back in Sweden and the sun is out at last. Warmer than Turkey this is! Lots of dragonflies on the wing, including plenty of Coenagrion hastulatum to wade through to find lunulatum...

First things first this morning, having stepped off the plane in Turkey two weeks ago with ears that no longer worked and got no better it was time for a trip to the doctor's. Big infection apparently, should have gone sooner! Dosed up with antibiotics now so things should improve hopefully. Being pointed in the right direction for singing birds by sprightly 75-year olds whilst in Turkey felt distinctly topsy-turvy but I took the embarrassment like a man!

First up was a trip to Klarningen. Jan Skidell found a calling spotted crake last night and I was hopeful but not confident. Will try and get back at a better time tomorrow. Water levels have dropped at Klarningen but the birds remain. There are now a fantastic total of six garganey (one pair) and eight shoveler, also two whooper swans dropped in and a pair each of wigeon and teal remain. Waders included Temminck's stint (1), dunlin (3 and a year-tick!), at least 20 ruff and two wood sandpipers. Four black-headed gull nests have magically appeared.

The hairy one (Brachytron pratense), plenty flying at Eskilstorpsdammar today.

Walked into Eskilstorpsdammar next for dragonflies but got lucky with birds picking up the last few migrants I still need for the year. Cuckoo, marsh warbler and garden warbler were all nice. At least three red-backed shrikes and stacks of icterine warblers on site too. I also thought there was a brief snatch of rosefinch song from the riverside trees, there has been one lurking at Klarningen lately and maybe this was the same bird. Dragonflies included all the usual suspects, with eight species on the wing, including Cordulia,  Brachytron and a few Leucorrhina rubicunda. Also map butterfly on the wing here.

Leucorrhinia rubicunda is mostly found on the higher ground in BK but occurs in small numbers at Eskilstorpsdammar. Note the costa is yellow all the way to the base of the wing

Last stop of the day was a rapid transect through Bösketorp pools, had a quick skim through the Odonates but again no surprises and no lunulatum. Some frisky common newts though.

Watched a resident pair of honey buzzards today too.

more atlas work

The rosea form of Nymphaea alba was looking good today at Dagshög.

A single male Brachytron was new for the square today at Dagshög.

Another sluggardly start saw us all heading to Dagshög for a BBQ and dragonfly session. This proved to be an inspired choice as all the nasty looking squalls missed us over the next three hours. A light breeze form the sea did little to suppress Odonata activitity and we had a good look around the various wetlands at this under-watched location. Few surprises but Coenagrion pulchellum, Brachytron pratense and Orthetrum cancellatum were all new for the square.

We left ahead of potential rain and went north to a sunny Torekov to have a look at Flymossen. It was getting late by now and we found no libellulids on the wing here, just Enallagma and Ischnura elegans, as well as my first meadow browns of the year.

rODOtrip

I rarely leave BK these days, it has almost developed into agrophobia, but this year I am determined to catch up with those dragonfly species that I have yet to see in Sweden that are reasonably close at hand. And that means getting in the car and going to see them!

Mrs B kicked me out the door bright and early this morning and told me not to come back until I had seen a new dragonfly. I drove SW towards Dagstorpsjön, stopping en route at the beautiful stretch of the Ronneå at Herrevads Kloster. It was still early but the Odos were awake, the meadows by the river were teeming with Calopteryx splendens, Coenagrion pulchellum and Platycnemis pennipes. A careful search of the river eventually produced two patrolling male Gomphus vulgatissimus. Three year-ticks in that little haul - a great start.

Platycnemis pennipes were flying in good numbers on the Ronneå today, it appears to be absent from the lower reaches of the Stensån in BK. These were my first in Skåne!

I love gomphids, this is one of two male Gomphus vulgatissimus watched patrolling the Ronneå this morning.

Calopteryx species are so exotic, this splendens was one of over 200 along a short stretch of the Ronneå this morning.

Driving on I reached Dagstorpsjön by mid-morning and started searching along the mostly treed shoreline. Arriving at small bay I was overjoyed to find a male Epitheca bimaculata patrolling along the shoreline. By jumping from tussock to tussock out into the lake margin I was able to get quite close but no chance of a photo sadly. I just had to enjoy it through the bins. I got most of the features, you could even tell the gender but I could not get the 'twinspots' in the hind wing. A big dragonfly and a welcome lifer.

Drove back north, this time heading for Lärkeröd gravel pits. Patric Carlsson put this site on the map a couple of years ago by finding a small colony of Leucorrhinia albifrons and I was finally going to see them. On arrival I bumped into Thomas Wallin and we were straight onto a Leucorrhina albifrons. Well the colony is not small anymore! We must have seen over a 100, mostly teneral individuals. A big emergence was underway. Patric turned up later on and showed us round the site. On the shores of Rossjön we found two gordian worms. I recorded 14 Odo species during two hours here and missed a few species that were flying. It is a great little site and always produces a few good birds too. A single woodlark greeted me on the access track, a pair of hobbies were obviously in residence and a nutcracker did a fly by. Loaded up with gen on the dragonfly sites of the area I headed to a nearby pond to look for Leucorrhinia pectoralis. There was one good male present which escaped a photo and also the animal pictured below, which I think is one too but it is presumably sub-adult. dubia and rubicunda were also flying here!

A male Leucorrhinia albifrons, only my second record of this species, so pretty exciting stuff.

The Lärkeröd colony of Leucorrhinia albifrons is evidently well-established, now we just need some westerly dispersal into BK.

Part of Patric's guided tour at Lärkeröd included a look at nearby Rossjön, here I spotted a gordian worm. We were stumped by it at the time but the internet soon solved the riddle of it's identity and bizarre lifestyle. Gordian worms (or hair worms) are nematamorphs, a phylum of freshwater invertebrates. They live most of their lives as 20-30cm long, ribbon-thin animals, in freshwater, where they mate and produce eggs. Once eggs develop into larvae, larval gordian worms must infect an aquatic insect larvae, which metamorphosizes and carries the gordiid onto shore. Once onshore, the gordiid encysted inside the aquatic insect must be eaten by a cricket or grasshopper, in which the gordian worm feeds and matures. Gordian worms only feed while inside their cricket or grasshopper host. For the gordian to complete its lifecycle, the infected cricket must then die and fall into water. Blimey!

Female Brachytron pratense egg-laying at Lärkeröd today.

I saw one good 'yellow-spotted' male pectoralis at the pond near Rossjön today and this beast. I think the robustness, black pterostigma and the shape and colour of the S7 spot make the id sound.

My last gasp was to blast back towards BK, stopping at Benmöllan for dipper and grey wagtail and at Perstorps enefälad for false heath fritillary. Last stop of the day was at Klarningen where half an hour produced nothing unsual. A great day out.

Back on patch, Perstorps enefälad produced at least two false heath fritillaries.

Double whammy!

On the pretext of doing some reconnaisance ahead of tomorrow's trip around NW Skåne with Birding Copenhagen, Mrs B, Number 3 and I headed out to look for 'other people's' dotterel and great white egrets. I should know better by now I guess. Twitching is best left to the experts. We failed to find the dotterel in a very empty field, three golden plover were a small consolation indeed.

We then headed to Allerumskog. Mrs B's map-reading allowed us to take in the sights and sounds of rural Skåne at some length until we finally arrived at the wetland that has hosted a pair of great white egrets for the past five days. Imagine our pleasure when on arrival we found two dogs swimming lazily in the lake... This site was however interesting for other reasons and soon it was heads down checking out invertebrates (the egrets were probably sky-dancing above us). The easy highlight here were my first Swedish map butterflies.

The kind of maps Mrs B enjoys. Map butterflies colonised SW Skåne in the early 90s and are obviously spreading north. Not sure if they have got to BK yet?

The pool here was also good for dragonflies with teneral four-spot chasers much in evidence and a few hairy dragonflies flying about through the marginal vegetation. Nice one.

Hairy dragonfly - a Skåne tick for me

Driving home with a double-dip safely in the bag we decided to lunch at Farhult - knot (1) was a year-tick.

Farhult

Penultimate stop of the day was at Sandön where we were gob-smacked to find two white-winged black terns. [It transpired that other birders had seen them earlier but still self-found in my book]. A good reason not to carry a pager! Also here were at least eight little gulls, including a spanking adult.

Last stop of the day was a quick check on Ranarpstrand - nothing doing here really in a very quick check.

micro-tern