{"id":10013,"date":"2026-04-26T19:53:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/?p=10013"},"modified":"2026-04-26T19:55:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:55:41","slug":"10013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/26\/10013\/","title":{"rendered":"A BIRD IN THE HAND"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t consider myself a birdwatcher, though I very much enjoy feeding the birds that come to our yard through the winter, and watching them. I’m always thrilled when we get one of the woodpeckers, and it’s exciting to see a chaffinch, a new bird that we hadn’t seen before. Normally we get blue tits, chiffchaffs, European robins, blackbirds, and tree sparrows. We get wood pigeons and mourning doves, and the aforementioned woodpeckers (Great Spotted). We get pheasants. And we get the big “blacks” including crows, jackdaws, ravens, rooks, and magpies. I scare the jackdaws and crows away when I see them, because they knock the feeders to the ground, and I’d rather feed the little songbirds that have a tougher time of it. They only get fed through the winter, though I’m finishing up late this year, due to being gone for 3 weeks. We have 3 feeders: one for peanuts, one for suet balls and one that has two sides: for mixed seed and for sunflower seeds. I fill the little birdbath every day during the summer as well, when we’re no longer putting out food for the birds, and we’ve seen several bathing in it.<\/p>\n

Today was a bird-filled day. I was wrong when I wrote on Friday that I had no real plans for the weekend because I had completely forgotten that I had signed Anders and myself up for an AIC activity, which was a talk (in English) at the Falsterbo Bird Observatory. We had to get up pretty early this morning to get there on time, as the talk was scheduled for 10 am and it takes an hour to drive to Falsterbo from Flyinge, and then we had to walk 20 minutes from the parking lot down the coast to the Falsterbo Lighthouse. <\/p>\n

Falsterbo Fyr (“lighthouse” in Swedish) is located near the end of the little peninsula that sticks out to the west at the bottom of Sweden. It’s not actually the southernmost point of Sweden, since it juts too far west. At the very end is the M\u00e5kl\u00e4ppen nature reserve, made up of shifting sandbanks that change every year, which is home to harbor and grey seals. It’s closed off, to protect the seals, from February to the end of October. But you can walk down the side of the peninsula all the way to the lighthouse, past the Falsterbo Golf Club, which is what we did today, because the garden of the lighthouse is home to the ringing activities of the Falsterbo Bird Observatory. According to Wikipedia, “Falsterbo is a premier site in Europe to watch autumn bird migration. Several millions of birds pass every autumn en route to wintering areas in Africa or southern Europe. Annually, about 25,000 small birds are trapped and ringed.”<\/p>\n

We were about 30 people from the AIC that gathered in the beautiful spring morning to listen to Lidia, who is a biologist specializing in ornithology, tell us about the observatory and the work they do, as well as about bird migrations and birds in general. Her English was great, and she knew all the English names for the birds as well. She has only been working for the bird observatory for 3 weeks, but was very knowledgeable and assured, and answered a huge barrage of questions that all of us asked. The workers ring the birds in the spring and the fall, and document the migration, routes, types of birds, etc. They set up nets around the garden at 4 am every night and then spend every 30 minutes catching, ringing (a tiny aluminum tag that goes around the bird’s leg), documenting, and releasing the birds. She said the smaller birds get caught in the nets, but the larger birds (ducks, geese, gulls, etc.) are often so heavy that they bounce right back out of the net. <\/p>\n

She had 2 birds in bags to show us up close, and another woman brought a 3rd bird to show us during the talk. She showed us a European robin, a common redstart, and a willow warbler, which is the smallest of the local songbirds. She held the birds, calmed them down, and let the children in the group gently pet their heads. She showed us their wings and tails and then let them go after we had all taken photos. <\/p>\n

Lidia also talked about the effects of climate change on the birds, which are steadily declining across all species, though some have returned from almost extinct to very common, due to the banning of pesticides used in the 70s and 80s. It was rather sobering to think about, on a clear blue gorgeous spring day. You can see all the stats, data, and interesting information about their work on Falsterbo Bird Observatory website<\/a>, which is updated in both English and Swedish daily. <\/p>\n

The sun was shining the entire day and there were no clouds at all. It was chilly but not too windy along the coast. The sky was a deep beautiful blue. When we walked back along the shoreline, we actually couldn’t see the water at all, as the dunes hid it from us entirely. We walked past a long row of the tiny colorful “beach huts” that line both sides of the peninsula and are very sought-after real estate in the area, since new ones are no longer permitted due to being in nature reserve and protected shore areas. <\/p>\n

Anders and I both took naps after we got home, and then Anders oiled the swing patio, and we put out the deck furniture, which I wiped down and cleaned. Yesterday, I walked up to the plantshop and bought seed potatoes (3 kinds) and onions (white and red), and seed packets for snap peas and carrots. It’s still quite chilly out so I’m waiting to buy the rest of the tomatoes and cucumbers since we can’t put them out yet anyway. <\/p>\n

\"falsterbo
\nFalsterbo Fye with the sun behind it<\/p>\n

\"lighthouse
\nCloseup of the lighthouse, looking up<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCommon Redstart<\/p>\n

\"common
\nCommon Redstart, up close<\/p>\n

\"European
\nEuropean Robin<\/p>\n

\"Willow
\nLidia showing off a Willow Warbler<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nA fascinated group of AIC members<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nView out toward the water<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nSk\u00e5ne beach huts<\/p>\n

Mood: relaxed
\nMusic: Ray Dalton\u2014I Just Wanna Be Happy<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t consider myself a birdwatcher, though I very much enjoy feeding the birds that come to our yard through the winter, and watching them. I’m always thrilled when we get one of the woodpeckers, and it’s exciting to see a chaffinch, a new bird that we hadn’t seen before. Normally we get blue tits, chiffchaffs, European robins, blackbirds, and tree sparrows. We get wood pigeons and mourning doves, and the aforementioned woodpeckers (Great Spotted). We get pheasants. And we get the big “blacks” including crows, jackdaws, ravens, rooks, and magpies. I scare the jackdaws and crows away when I...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,14,7,3],"class_list":["post-10013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-americanabroad","tag-goodthings","tag-obiterphotos","tag-wonderfulworld"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10013"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10027,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10013\/revisions\/10027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}