Visiting Getterön on a Saturday morning

I hit the road early on Saturday morning as the cat woke me up just after 4 am. This time she had everything she wanted except the possibility to actually go out on the balcony and therefore she woke me up with her screaming.

The roads where more or less empty when I drove off slightly past 5:00 in the morning. The trip to Varberg went smoothly and I could see how the sun was climbing higher in the sky the nearer I came Varberg. It rises above the horizon around 4:30 in the morning and that means you have to be up early this time of year. Even I think it is a too early, but it is easy to get up when you have a furry alarm that tends to start around that time.

There were already one person in the hide when I got there meaning I for once wasn´t first there. I saw that the Black-headed Gull colony still was activity. I suppose it will be like that for another week or maybe two before they move away. My hope for the morning was that the migratory waders from up north hopefully had started to come back to this part of Sweden.

Sadly there were no waders to find, but warblers could be heard everywhere either young begging for food or adults calling for the young ones. They are less shy this time of the year as they must feed the young. That meant I got a couple of okay photos of both Reed Warbler and Willow Warbler this morning.

Still I wouldn´t say that there were much activity. I had higher hopes, but I saw one picture coming to me during the morning as the sun was rising higher in the sky.

We had two Gadwall families just in front of the hide chasing insects on the water surface. At first they were far-off, but once the sun stood higher in the sky they got close enough.

Juvenile Gadwalls morning Getterön — Juvenile Gadwalls 130713

The light was still not to harsh and to be able to capture to juvenile Gadwalls food searching like this was nice. You get a good feeling for how small they are when you compare them with the broken off reed that they are swimming among. This is by far the best picture off the morning if you ask me.

I hope you like this picture and the rest you find in the gallery from my morning visit at Getterön.