Blue Hawker

A good day for picking mushrooms in the forest. Of course I can´t leave out the exciting moths and dragonflies. I manage to catch a male and a female Blue Hawker. Quite gorgeous creatures!

the face

.. and so good looking!

the snout

and what a snout!

creeping brush

You see a lot of good, interesting, mysterious stuff on a forestroad walk. What is this creeping little brush? As far as I´ve found out it is in fact a Muslin Moth (Diaphora mendica) or in swedish Grå tigerspinnare!

the furball

What kind of furry, little ball is this?

Dragonfly sunset

25:th of September
A couple of Dragonfly-species still fly in reasonably good numbers. The wetlands of Kvismaren is a good place for them. I have to share this one with you even if it´s hard to see what species it is. (I have yet to find out myself) As you might already have noticed, I´m a sucker for sunsets and seriously, how many really good sunsets do YOU see each year?

10.000 Cranes don´t lie

25:th of September
Lake Kvismaren in Närke is just an hour drive away from Svartådalen and a real magnet for birds. Tens of thousands of Bean– and Greylag Geese, hundreds of Barnacles and odd numbers of the other Geese including even a flock of Lesser Whitefronts, was observed by some other people today.
On a gorgeous day like this it´s a truly wonderful place to be. We see raptors practically everywhere we´re looking and ten species are easily found, several Hen Harriers, Sea Eagles, Rough-legged Buzzards, add to that Merlin, Peregrine and even a possible juvenile Pallid Harrier. Not seen close enough though, but my experience tells me it was most likely one. (You know they are very similar to Monatgue´s Harrier in juvenile plumage)
The true final of a day´s birding in Kvismaren is of course when the 10.000 (!) Cranes staging in the area, fly in to their roosting site in the lake at sunset. Wow! is not enough word to describe it and unfortunately my pictures to show enough either. You just have to use your imagination to picture the sound and feeling of seeing so many, so big and so loud birds at the same time. Yes, many of you know already!