My friend Torsten Green-Petersen from Visby was visiting today. He arrived to the farm quarter past seven while it still was pitch black. We hiked out and started to wait in the dark. The sky turned red and the frost in the grass gave a surreal touch to the scene. We saw several Red Kites passing by and we could hear them in the air – phiu phiuuu phiuuuu. Over and over they flew by but as always – reluctant to stay.

With a friend visiting I wanted everything to work and to get large crowds of birds in fantastic light but as you can guess… The sun went into a cloud and was stuck there for the rest of the day. The birds that showed up were touchy and nervous.

A Red Kite (Milvus milvus) was on the ground for less than a minute and then left for good – screaming into the sky. A Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) came and stayed for maybe 5 minutes but then left. It was like someone was watching and made sure that we should not get any pictures. Seeing Torsten again was great but otherwise the most exciting this morning was a Common Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) that with huge grace passed in front of us. Even though there were predators all-around the pheasant did not care and just kept on with a slow pace into open ground. From what I could see it made it back into the low bushes and more protected space. This is – I think the first sign of spring and I like it!