Hornborgasjon

With a sunday free and rain forecast on the Swedish west coast, I headed up to Hornborgasjon.

I have given up trying to pronounce the name of this place to the locals and instead call it "Lake Hornborga", or "the place where the Tranor gather and dance in spring". With a maximum of 13,900 crances counted, it has been a very good year for them. Only in their 100's at this time of the year however.

At first sight it looks a bit like a UK wetland with the usual feral greylag and canada goose problem, but then you notice the red-necked grebes everywhere, the ospreys, displaying waders in breeding plumage, arctic terns and the odd white-tailed eagle! then there is just the shear scale of the place - 4,000hectares even on a sunday it felt like I had the place to myself.

As it happened, wader numbers were quite low due, I think, to higher water levels then usual - a few gangs of ruff, wood sandpipers and spotted redshank, but WT Eagles put in several impressive performances, its presence pointed out to me by the hysterical black-headed gull conony (amazing how such a large bird can be overlooked if not careful in such a large landscape). Several osprey were fishing and nesting and the grebes showed well.


view from the eastern side of the lake
Just another of those 4,000 hectare Swedish lakes...enough to keep a naturalist happy for a full day at least


lots of shallow "blue edge" and grazed wet meadows around the lake is thought important by the swedes and something which is often lacking in our wetlands.




pasque flower on the eastern side of the lake

On the eastern side of the lake are some limestone mounds containing some interesting flowers such as pansy and pasque flower. Also a huge colony of some kind of mining bee and the odd camberwell beauty shot by on a strong wind.




green hairstreak

Woodland surrounding the lake contained pied flycatchers, redstarts, green hairstreaks and the odd camberwell beauty. Didn't hear the wrynecks this time.


thunbergi yellow wags were everywhere




red-necked were the most common of the grebes with 10's counted from most viewpoints. Quite a few Black-necked were also about, but couldn't find the Slavonian's.



the restored Hornborgasjon with raised water levels from the western side

Spillkraka no show

wood anemones are abundent all around gothenburg, sweden


Kattugla being mobbed

During a work-related trip to gothenburg, sweden, I managed to make a trip to one of my favourite local sites - an old beech woodland. The mighty spillkraka nests here, but at this time of the year, keeps unusually quiet and without knowing which of the multitude of large cavities they are nesting in, a sighting of the big black woodpecker is difficult. This site never disappoints, however and I was richly rewarded with several Hawfinch feeding from beechmast on the woodland floor while woodwarblers spun off their song from the canopy.

Sorry, no respectable photos of the Hawfinch possible with the FZ7, but after some crafty stalking, I did manage a shot of a Tawny Owl being mobbed. The woodland floor was well populated with voles and mice, but the Pygmy Owl call I heard was probably a Jay trying to fool me. Calling back did not produce the reaction from Pygmy Owl I have found in the past.

mating arvicolas

arvicola casanova...looking for love


water vole bliss

Lots of water vole activity at the local drain. With sex on the mind, close photography was easily possible. The male seemed to perform a circuit on the water, with the odd skermish before meeting up and mating with the female. This was repeated every couple of minutes.

heathland reptiles

Grass snake. It really was worth the effort. Stayed put at 1m even after my retreat.



Male adder...I didn't squat down fast enough on sighting this one, he must have spotted me at 3meters against the sky. Originally thought this a female, but brown background colouration is due to emerging from hibernation. Paler coloration will occur after sloughing of skin.


Young adder, approx 1yr old. A very willing model allowing macro phtography down to a few cm due to it being...... dead

As it was March, sunny and the wind had dropped, it looked ideal for an attempt to spot some reptiles at the local heath. Kick-off was at the civilised crack of 10:30 (supposedly the best time to start snake watching), but after 3 hours of intense, quiet, slow searching I had a grand total of zero reptilians. Maybe it had something to do my magnetic attraction to dog walkers….’oooo he could run around you all day! – you’ve got a new friend there’ etc etc. I really must remember to pack that RPG7 for my new friends to catch in future. A bit despondent I considered kicking it into touch but after the regulation mars bar fix I gave it one last surge as you ‘don’t get owt fer nowt' as they say in my native Cheshire.

And suddenly there it was. The grass snake was patient and obliging down to 1 meter on full macro zoom on the FZ7. The adders were a bit more difficult, but finally two females were found. One small reddish adder seemed particularly un-shy, but after returning and finding this particular snake in exactly the same position I started to get a bit suspicious....and after finally poking it with a stick it was confirmed seriously dead. At 21.5cm, it is probably 1 year old. From the position it was in it didn’t look like a predator or human was to blame. Maybe it didn’t quite have the energy levels to survive hibernation and died trying to gain some warmth outside.

arvicolas return

Water vole in the local drain. Note the starwort - the drain is fed by blow wells with water percolated through the chalk lincolnshire wolds. Never seen a water vole eat the stuff though - they seem to prefer the new grass.

The local water voles are now stiring. March always seems to be the best time to view them. Vegetation is low and they all seem very hungry and unwilling to launch off into the drains.

Pink foots at dawn

Pinkfoots at dawn flighting over Reed's island onto the Humber mud beyond after a night in the winter wheat fields




Pinkfoots and spud field

The local pink footed goose flock has been a bit difficult to find. They make a spectacular sight dawn as they come in to roost on Reeds Island in the River Humber. Thankfully traffic is low at this time on Saturday, so the sound of 100's of yelping geese was wonderful. They only stopped for a short break before launching them selves over the wolds. Although considerably faster than my Vectra, I did manage to catch up with them feeding on scraps of potatoes. Many potatoes have rotted in the fields this year my green grocer tells me. A count of 2,250 birds.

Grey Seals at Donna Nook

The seals really couldn't care less about the GR4 tornados at 100ft on full afterburner or even dropping bombs close by. I guess it comes from having no avian predators down the millenia - in any case they have other things on their mind: Male grey seals fight it out over mating rights


Threat technique in wet mud conditions - once you get some speed up you can just glide over the mud with minimum skin friction losses while you close in mouth open and roaring.


Fat pup. Thin mum has probably gone out to sea and won't be returning. Free meals are over forever. Probably comes as quite a shock.


Fat mum with thin pup...this will soon swap around as she doesn't feed for the next 4 weeks and loses 65kg, while pup puts on 43kg. That seems quite an efficient energy exchange considering she must use some to tick over for 4 weeks also. Probably much better than my gas boiler.

We made the autumn pilgrimage to Donna Nook for the birth of grey seal pups trying to miss the masses (of the human variety) by getting there early. Stacks of pups again, probably over 1000 pups at this site this year. Just waiting for a pod of killer whales to discover snack sized seals are on the menu here....