Today I went to see the cranes gathering at Hornborgasjön. It is not far, less than 40 km from where I live now, but it has been quite a few years since last time. Very popular place to visit, especially at this time of year to watch the gathering of cranes. Today there were 19,000 of them, if I recall correctly what the sign said. Took some pictures, which were not very good. It was quite windy and cold, but still a nice outing. Not winter, but not really spring either.
Cranes are a recurring subject of this blog.
How long did it take to count them all?
3289, 3290, … oh no, you interrupted me. Now I have to start over!
On as serious note, the cranes spend day time in a rather limited area on fields bordering on the lake. They are fed there. In the evening they fly to the lake to spend the night standing in shallow waters. So they take off in smaller groups in evening on a rather narrow route, and then it is when they are counted. The crane counters do this every evening for a period. This lake is the last collective stop over for the cranes before they fly further north. They do not live in colonies but are spread out over Sweden and Norway.