Finally a great day. The wind have turned to northeast, and it seems like the birds has been waiting for this just as much as we have. A lot of migrating passerines in the morning, and we were quite busy with the ringing for a while. And all day huge amounts of Eiders, Barnacle and Brant Geese have migrated. Unfortunately we haven't been able to count the migration all the time, so we can only guess how many it been, but definitely tens of thousands of all species!

Not a lot of rare birds today, but in the morning we saw two Pomarine Skuas and in the afternoon a Long-tailed Jaeger ones again past quite close to the island.

I didn't catch any owls last night but a Northern Wheatear was interrupted in it's sleep and got a ring around the leg:-)

Hoping for another great day tomorrow.

Still windy from west and not a lot of birds on the island. But more raptors today than before at least. Mostly sparrowhawks, but also three Hen Harriers, a Common Buzzard, a Common Kestrel, four White-tailed Eagles and a Merlin.
Apart from the raptors the nicest birds were probably the five Twites and a Grey Wagtail that visited us shortly.

The color ringed Caspian Gull we saw the first day turned out to be from Ukraine as you can see on the last picture.

If the wind goes down a little bit I will try to catch some owls tonight. You will hear more about that tomorrow if I have any luck.

Today has almost been an exact copy of yesterday. It's still very windy from west, the Common Firecrest is still around and in the afternoon a Pomarine Skua passed the island migrating south. The only difference from yesterday took part 10 minutes after we saw the Pomarine Skua when a Long-tailed Jaeger passed quite close to us (but sadly not close enough for any photos). It's the first time any of us seen that species here.

The forecast for tomorrow looks a little bit better. The wind direction is still going to be west, but much weaker. And on Tuesday the wind is finally going to turn to northeast:-)

In the evening today I went out and looked for toads. Found 62 European green toads, 10 Common toads, 6 Natterjack toads and 3 Agile frogs.

Not been any good opportunities so far for photographing, but hopefully that will change tomorrow.


Goodnight!

Well, finally we have arrived to Utklippan. We didn't think that we would be able to get out here today due to the very hard wind. But the skipper took a chance and it worked:-)
It just took about an hour more than normal to get out here.

We wasn't expecting much from today due to the wind, but luckily we was wrong. After just an hour we caught a Common Firecrest, my first at Utklippan!
After that the ringing has been going quite slowly.

One species we was expecting today was Pomarine Skua, and finally at four a clock we found one.

And in the afternoon we found an old Caspian Gull with a yellow colour ring with the code PUET. Should get the ringing data from that one on Monday or Tuesday.

So all and all a good first day. Tomorrow will be quite windy as well so we don't have any high hopes for any more rare birds.. Well, maybe if we can get a grip on that BIG pipit that we just observed very shortly today:-)

See you again tomorrow!

Sitting in the car now heading down to Karlskrona, were we will spend a night at a hotel before going out to Utklippan early tomorrow morning.
For the last week no birders been on the island, so when we arrive we have to put up all the nets ourselves, and hopefully the whole island will be full of unringed birds.

Just want it to be Saturday morning now!

Share some more pictures from my previous trips to Utklippan. This time mote photos of the island and the ringing.

Known for a while now that most of the visitors on my homepage doesn't speak Swedish. So thought it was about time that I start writing in English instead.

Hope you will enjoy it!

Tomorrow, right after work I will travel down to Blekinge in the southeast of Sweden, and early Saturday morning go out to a little island about 15 km out of the coast of Blekinge, called Utklippan. Since a few years I go birding there one week every spring and autumn. This place usually gives me a lot of opportunities to take photos as well.

I will update this blog every day for the next week to tell how we are doing out there. And hopefully I will be able to present some nice photos for you as well:)

Meanwhile I here present some of the best photos I've taken on Utklippan in my previous visits.