January: Denmark and Sweden
A trip to Copenhagen which, unusually, involved a weekend-off in the middle, gave me the chance to catch-up with my Denmark-based friend David and start the list with some real birding. Before then however, my first Danish bird of the year was a Rough-legged Buzzard hunting over the airfield as the plane taxied in to the gate – not a bad start. A Saturday afternoon trip to a woodland area north of Copenhagen produced the local specialities of wintering Dipper and Kingfisher and resident Short-toed Treecreeper and Black Woodpecker.
The next day we went for a full day over the bridge into Southern Sweden. This is a reliably good winter trip due to the numbers of birds of prey, particularly Red Kite and White-tailed Eagle, which can be seen at this time of year. For this trip however, there were also a few bonus species available, with Steller’s Eider, Spotted Eagle and Eastern Imperial Eagle all being reported the previous day. In the event we missed the first two, but after some rather wild and entertaining car chases, we finally caught up with the Imperial Eagle perched in a tree. This was our main target of the day, not least because it was a lifer for David, but although we missed the other two rarities we did pretty well for other goodies, including Hen Harrier, Goshawk, Rough-legged Buzzard, Great Grey Shrike as well as the expected Red Kites and White-tailed Eagles. For me however, bird of the day was at our last stop; an Eagle Owl which showed well at a site near Lund.
Next day, as I was having breakfast in the hotel, a flock of Waxwings flew by the window, leaving both my Danish and Swedish lists on 50 species for the year so far.
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