Our Easter birding tour started out great with two unexpected lifers in one day. The first one was a Ring-necked Duck (Ringand, Aythya collaris) at Angarn. We had half expected this one, as it was known before we went there, but we kind of gave up hope when it couldn't be found for an hour or two.
Repositioning ourselves onto higher ground however proved to be successful. The duck was found and good times were had by all. Unfortunately we weren't able to get any decent pictures.
After having spent a couple of hours at Angarn we decided to head for the coast in the hope of some seabirds. This proved to be a bad decision birding wise. However, as luck would have it, the birding alarm system gave notice of a Green-winged Teal (Amerikansk Kricka, Anas carolinensis) just one hour's drive away from the coast, in Närtuna, near Gottröra.
We received the alert quite late in the day, so it became a race against the clock, trying to find it before sundown. The alert mentioned the bird to be located 500 meters South-East of a small church, out in a flooded mud field.
Of course it had to be a mud field! and of course the initial 500 meters turned out to be more like a kilometer across very muddy terrain, crossed by flooded irrigation trenches!
When we finally got there the only guy on the scene was leaving. He confirmed having seen the bird and even showed us a short video recording he had made. Having shown and told us of all these wonderful things, he also told us that he believed that the bird had flown away...
After having killed him on the spot and buried the corpse in a shallow and muddy grave, we started looking for the one special Teal in a group of maybe 30 regular Teals anyway, hoping we might get lucky.
The Teal was nowhere to be found.
As the sun drew closer to the horizon we were joined by a couple of other birders, who had also followed the call of the rare bird alert. We jointly sifted through the group of Teals once more.
The Teal was nowhere to be found.
The weather grew cold. The sweat that we had worked up during the criss-crossing of the mud fields carrying all our equipment set and stuck to us. Snot was hanging from our noses. A chilling evening breeze watered our eyes. We were hungry. A sense of bitter defeat started to spread through the group.
Then, suddenly, a new alert came in, telling of the Green-winged Teal from the place we were at.After initial confusion, it became clear that two other birders had stared to drive around and double check pools in mud fields nearby and they had located the Teal once more. After no more than five minutes had we located the right pool and ticked the bird, just before sunset. For the second time that day we celebrated a lifer.
It took stress, tension, mud and waiting in the cold, but in the end it was was worth it. Chalk one up for the team! :-)
Bird of the day: Eurasian Jackdaw - Kaja - Dohle - Corvus monedula
Lifer 1 of the day: Ring-necked Duck -- Ringand -- Ringschnabelente -- Fuligule à collier -- Aythya collaris
Lifer 2 of the day: Green-winged Teal -- Amerikansk kricka -- Amerikanische Krickente -- Sarcelle à ailes vertes -- Anas carolinensis
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