New year!

New year, and it could have started better... heavy snowfall during the night made us all wake up to loads more snow and many unploughed roads. Strong northern winds did not make the thing better, as it blew the snow onto the roads again when they had been ploughed, creating large barriers of snow to drive through.

Which turned out to be bad for our car. Somehow a belt connected to the engine came loose, and hence the battery didn't charge and the car died. Yay. It had to be towed off. Not a good start when you want to go birding a lot! The thing is also that the same car broke down almost exactly a year ago, on January 3, when we were out looking for owls, and had to be towed. Bad tradition.

Anyway, before stupid car problems we saw a few species during that first day, with White-tailed Eagle, Dipper and Collared Dove as highlights.

Today we rented a car and went back once again to Storvreta, to get the Goldfinches & Co on the year list. Saw all the usual suspects there, and managed to find two Arctic Redpolls myself in amongst the Common ones. Even got a photo of one!


Slightly better photo than the last of the Merlin (Falco columbarius). Storvreta, January 2 2011.


Very bad photo of an Arctic Redpoll (Carduelis hornemanni), Storvreta January 2 2011.

Tomorrow we hope for sunny weather, as we're going out on the plains to search for Golden Eagles, Grey Partridges and Lapland Buntings. Should be fun!