Kongelunden

The promise of a warm, sunny spring day meant I was up at 5am and, by dawn, I was on my bike and well on my way to Kongelunden, on the southern tip of Amager. I counted around 15 Chiffchaffs singing during the journey and, on arrival at Sydvestpynten (Southwest point) I was greeted with a flat calm sea and a degree or two of frost.

During a 2-hour vigil on the point I saw: 1 Grey Wagtail, several flocks of migrating Great and Blue Tits (I still can't get used to seeing flocks of tits coming in off the sea - seems weird!), 3 White-fronted Geese, 12 Barnacle Geese, 1 Skylark, 20 Starlings, 6 Red-necked Grebes, 9 Sandwich Terns, 4 Reed Buntings, 2 Pintail, 11 Wigeon, 7 Shoveler, 1 Smew, 14 Red-breasted Mergansers, 18 Eider, 6 Tufted Duck, 45 Goldeneye, 3 Sparrowhawks in off, 1 Curlew and a singing Redwing in the bushes just inland.

I then decided to search the woods, hoping for some woodpeckers and, possibly, a Nutracker or two. I missed the Nutcrackers but I did see 8+ Great Spotted Woodpeckers, 1 Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, 2 Nuthatches, 2 Hawfinches, 8 Brambling and a Woodcock. The Woodpeckers were busy preparing nestholes (see below) and the Bramblings were looking resplendent in their jet black hoods. I also came across this amazing root system, belonging to a storm-blown spruce...

Danish news from yesterday included a Spotted Eagle sp a few miles north of Copenhagen. Seen twice and identified by the first observer as a Greater Spotted and by the second as a Lesser Spotted! It is very early for a Lesser Spotted (a summer visitor to northern Europe, usually arriving mid- late May) but Greater Spotted have been known to winter in southern Sweden (there were at least two sighted this winter just across the bridge) so it is more likely to be a Greater. Hopefully it will get seen again today and identified with certainty.... either way it's a magnificent bird to see!

Photos: an uprooted spruce; Great Spotted Woodpecker holes; and the regular roosting Tawny Owl