The wonder of Falsterbo
I recently spent a very enjoyable long weekend at the Falsterbo Bird Festival, Sweden. I had originally tried to be incognito but I was spotted and asked to do a couple of last minute talks that were thankfully well recieved.
Falsterbo is of course very famous as a migration watchpoint. Indeed, although the SE winds were not deemed as productive by the resident birders, for me the migration that I saw was still pretty amazing. There were stacks of Tree Pipits, Yellow Wagtails of a couple races and plenty of White Wagtails. Hunting them were legions of migrant Sparrowhawks who swooped and speedily patrolled the stands of vegetation. Some 17,000 passed through and although I didn’t see anything like that number I still managed to see at least a couple hundred whizzing through, sometimes at almost ground level.
White Wagtails along the harbour
White Wagtail
Dark phase Honey Buzzard escorted by a Sparrowhawk
Milling Starlings
Another of the many passing Honey Buzzards
A migrating Sparrowhawk
Hi David, sounds great – I'd love to go some day. One thing – The raptor with the Saprrowhawk looks much more like a dark Honey Buzzard than Common to me?
Hey Joe, you're right about the Honey Buzzard. Thanks