Tag: Hämpling (Linaria cannabina; Common linnet)

2025-05-01–04 Öland with Henrik

A four day birding excursion from Stockholm to the sothern part of island Öland. We were around 25 people in a comfortable bus and stayed at the Ottenby hostel. As usual, many early mornings.

This kind of trip often have birds far away from where we are and really requires a spotting scope, but I don’t own one and my longest camera lens is 840 mm (with the tele converter). (If I understand this corretly, that is about 30% reach as compared to a scope with 60 times magnification.) As a result I often have to crop the images significantly. Another problem is that a few photos were shot through the bus window, that does not help either. So you will have to excuse the quality of some pictures.

Outer Hebrides, September 21-28, 2024

Took a trip with my old friend, Johan, via Edinburgh to the Outer Hebrides. We traveled with a rental car via the ferry from Ullapool to the isle of Lewis. From there went to the northernmost tip, Butt of Lewis. Then we drove through the isles of Harris, North Uist, South Uist, Eriskay and Barra. Lastly we returned with a ferry to Oban and continued back to Edinburgh.

This was not the best time for bird watching, but I managed to capture four new species. It was also a bit late in the season as some tourist attractions were closed (e.g. the Arnol blackhouse). Most food shacks and lunch restaurants were also closed (and they are not plentyful to begin with). As we stayed in pre-booked hotels, we were at least treated to good dinners and breakfasts. Most of the hotels seemed to end their season in October.

2023-05-25–28 Österlen deluxe

A luxury four day trip to beautiful Österlen with single room accomodation and breakfast + dinner included. Led by Henrik W, we observed around 135 bird species, but I was of course not able to photograph them all. And as usual, some of the ones I did get, are not identifyable by the image – you’ll have to trust us.

July, 2021

This post is dominated by our trip to island of Gotland, southeast of Stockholm. I’m not happy about the quality of the photos in general, blaming the often long distance, the hot weather (heat haze) and strong sun. I shoulld of course have been out early or late instead of mid day. That said, six new X’s was nice to achieve.

May (the 2nd half), 2021

In between heavy rain days, Spring has finally arrived and thus allowing me to visit a number of local bird sanctuaries.

2021-04-29–05-15 Österlen

Another two week trip down to Brantevik via Alvesta. Our first week was mainly chilly, windy wet, but the weather picked up and the next batch of migratory birds started to arrive. I’m especially happy for getting good images of the Nightingale.