A Saturday morning trip to Lake Hornborga

I had a goal in mind for Saturday morning and that was to continue the lek season with the Black Grouses, but I ended up at Lake Hornborga due to a very short lek.

It is of course not bad to end up at Lake Hornborga even if that was not on my mind when I woke up way too early on Saturday morning. When I checked the weather forecast on Friday evening it said under zero and partially sunny. That sounded alright to me as I wanted to check the status of the lek and hopefully get more intense pictures than last time.

This time the lek started an hour earlier, but sadly it was over in just 20 minutes due to a car coming into the area. It has now happened twice and it almost feels like I need to find a more private lekking site with less disturbance. I think I will try to find one over Eastern when I have time off work.

Still the lek produced good images and I felt it was more intense lek. It was between 15-20 Black Grouse males, I sadly didn’t see a single female. I had a nice mist in the distant making the wood disappear at the start of the lek. The sun also made its appearance making for some nice warm images, the ones I like most.

When the Black Grouses disappeared I packed up and headed over to Lake Hornborga. It is not far and I could see Common Cranes in some fields on the way there. Of course not as many as at Lake Hornborga that now has attracted over 10000 Common Cranes. It will surely come more Cranes to Lake Hornborga over the coming days. It is a pure spectacle with all the birds, a spectacle I recommend all to visit.

I made two different stops at Lake Hornborga. The first in the southern part where the Common Crane gathers and one at Naturum in the eastern part of Lake Hornborga.

The first stop was for the Common Cranes and the second stop was to check if I could see the Black-necked Grebe that has been reported there. I sadly missed the Grebe, but got to see my first Smew instead. The second stop also produced some interesting pictures of two Mute Swan couples fighting. I have seen this type of behavior before, but not as intense as this time. Two of the Mute Swans was locked in a struggle probably for more than a minute before one fled with the other in pursuit.

I hope you will enjoy my gallery from the Black Grouse lek and Lake Hornborga.