The Barnacle Goose on migration

This was the second and last full day on Öland and it was going to be spent on the road mainly visiting open garden. Öland Sprouts is a spring festivity where both professionals and happy amateurs get the possibility to invite the public to their garden.

The festivity coincide with the first orchids at Stora Alvaret, the World Heritage site in the southern part of Öland. The orchids at Stora Alvaret and the migratory birds act like magnets too many people this time of year, but this year has been upside down with a cold spring that has halted both birds and flowers. Still both things had acted as magnets to us and that was why we had chosen to visit Öland this particular week in May.

Marias had done a small tour plan for the day and we were going to the north of Öland where most of the open gardens, and other activities, were situated. We didn´t just travel north because of Öland Sprouts, but also because of Marias missing skirt from the vacation here in Öland last August.

The owner of the summer cabin had kept her skirt there since summer and we just had to go there and pick it up.

We did five garden stops in total during the day and the quality was really up and down. Two of the places were nice, but the other gardens were more or less a catastrophe. The best part was that it seemed to inspire Maria and that was really positive. I hope she can turn this inspiration into a great deal of energy to get her garden business up and running.

The day had been really nice with sun and clear skies, but we felt a change in weather when we parked the car, shortly after lunch, at Ölands most northern point. This made us turn southwards until we drove over the Eastern side of Öland just north of Borgholm. The weather on the Eastern side was clearly different with hard winds and dark clouds. Still I wanted to check out Kapelludden, a place that produced a couple of good images during the trip last year.

I couldn´t feel this would bring anything, but we where there and I needed to see the place. We didn´t encounter any other car during the drive out on the cape that is Kapelludden. This probably didn´t mean anything, but I soon discovered zero cars in the small parking space.

We hadn´t seen anything out of the ordinary during the short drive out to Kapelludden, but I felt I had to stay put and check out the Barnacle Goose out in the fields. We could see that there where many Geese there but I had no idea of how many until something startled what must have been the main group in this Barnacle Goose migration. The sounds was deafening and it almost felt like a Grasshopper swarm was coming nearer.

I took this photo at that time, but it is really hard to get a good feeling about the size of this Barnacle Goose flock. I knew a report from the day before that said there were more than 80000 individual sighted in the southern part of Öland when a White-tailed Eagle spooked them.

It was an amazing experience to see this many Geeses in a single sighting and it is a little sad that my pictures can´t tell you the full story.

Photo Gallery: The Barnacle Goose on migration