London From the Air and Map of Swedish Trip

This is the final post from my Swedish trip - the Grey skies of Sweden were replaced by a beautiful sunset as we returned to the UK and then a wonderful clear view of London with the Dome, Emirates Cable car, Woolwich Barrier and docklands all visible. I also include here a map of our travels for future reference as I intend to return. Many thanks to Daniel Green of Birdsafaris Sweden for his expert guidance.

Sweden Day 5

The light on our final day in Sweden was not good so I struggled a bit to identify and photograph birds at the Oset and Rynningeviken Reserve but enjoyed the scenery and views of  Gadwall, Temincks Stint, Hooded Crows, various Wagtails and Red-necked Grebe. 

Sweden Day 4 Marshlands

I felt very much at home in the Kvismare Valley as the landscape is like our East Anglian Fens and many of the birds would be those seen there - Marsh Harrier, Heron, Tree Sparrow and hunting Peregrine. But the abundant Cranes and White-tailed  Eagles made the area special to Sweden. We even found a tree that had been gnawed by Beavers. The shrew was very small and thought to be a Pygmy Shrew

Sorby Sateri 17th Century Accomodation in Sweden

This is the house that we stayed in when visiting the Kvismare Valley. It is near the town of Orebro. Very impressive interiors including a large oil painting of Much Ado About Nothing and large ornamental wood burning stoves in all the rooms. We ate with our host and hostess in a magnificent dining room. Our bedrooms were less impressive in the stable block! 

Kvismare Bird Ringing Station, Sweden

After watching the Crane fly-out, we visited the Bird Ringing station to see what activity there was. We were lucky to be able to study a Bluethroat close-up and a Red Backed Shrike. Many Bluethroats have been ringed in Sweden in the autumn and recovered in Eastern Europe very  slightly later but no winter recoveries have ever been reported so there is still no information where this species spends the winter. 

We were also shown a Marsh Warbler, a species very close to the Reed Warbler (except in song), identified either by the length of the notch on the wing or by the ratio of beak length to diameter.

Sweden - Clear Night and Perfect Dawn

As the night was a clear one, I used the fisheye to record the stars - it wasn't as dark a sky as I expected as the town was quite close but I still managed an image of the Milky Way.

The fourth day in Sweden dawned clear and colourful and we watched the cranes fly out from their roost. The sky gradually changed from pin to orange to yellow as the sun rose.