Brambling

The pictures below are neither sharp nor is the light sufficient but since it is the first time I have seen bramblings in Svångemåla, I have to let you see them :)

One more cute bird :)

It is a marsh tit sitting in a  Robinia pseudoacacia that grows on our plot. I took at small plant in my parents' garden, and it has adjusted well and is now a small tree with wonderful flowers in spring.

Cutest bird in Svångemåla right now :)

 This is a young robin who has not got its full colours and looks a bit scruffy, but I still think it is, by far, the cutest of all birds that we have here right now :)

Short-toed treecreeper

As long as I can remember, I have been told and believed that the nuthatch is the only bird in Sweden that can go head first down a tree trunk. I was therefore surprised and excited when I saw a short-toed treecreeper going both up and down with its head first! 

It is amazing how difficult it is to spot it thanks to its colours that are almost identical to the bark of most trees.

 Someone hinted that I might just have turned the picture upside-down to create the impression that the bird is going head first down. First, I would never ever do anything like that and secondly, I am just as surprised as the rest of the area of Ornithology, but unfortunately I have no picture of the whole tree, but the picture below shows a bit more of the environment and to me, it is obvious that the tree creeper is going down head first!

Amazing experience!

 When out walking next to our plot I heard a big bird in the sky. I walked a few more meters and saw what I think were two buzzards circling high up in the sky. I tried to follow one of them and was surprised when it suddenly, more or less, stopped and dived towards a smaller one below it. Since I was following the larger of the two, I got a couple of shots of the two together and was very surprised when I looked at the photos on the computer. One of them is actually flying with its feet towards the sky! The quality of the photos is not the best, but if you click on the picture it will at least be a bit enlarged.

This shows how far away they were. 

Enlarged, it looks like this.

The bird flying closest to the ground seems to look up and realize that it is in danger.

Within a fraction of a second, the darker of the two attacks and the lower manage to turn around and fly upside down! I still do not know if it was a game, training or a real attack.

Black cap 2

 The black cap is  not a bird that makes many people excited. It is grey, small, and its song is not spectacular in any way. Still, I just love it and watching it eating in the bushes is great fun.

Mr Black Cap...

and Mrs Black Cap.

Blackcap

 The blackcap loves the elderberries!  It is so fun to watch them jumping around in the bushes looking for the best ones to eat :)

Two favourites

 Two of my favourites have visited our plot recently. The first one was a wagtail that suddenly landed on top of our car. It was not the resident couple but a couple of very young ones that were fairly unafraid of me. 

The second favourite that showed up today was our resident robin. It is around most of the time, but looked a bit different today. Not sure why, but its feathers seemed a bit out of order, and it had some strange black stripes under its beak that I have not noticed before. I hope it is feeling OK.

Willow warbler ?

 There are a number of birds that are difficult to identify from a distance, and this is one of them. I guess it is a willow warbler. In a few hours time, I hope someone in a Facebook group of bird experts will tell me!

Mushrooms

 It has been very dry in Svångemåla most of this summer, but the last four days it has rained a lot, almost 70 mm. That has made the mushrooms happy, and they are coming up everywhere!

I took this picture when it was still raining a little, making the colours very clear and beautiful. I don't think they are eatable and left it for the wild pigs to enjoy.