Cranes II

A few more photos from Lake Hornborga, since it is one of the major events in southern Scandinavia, especially for natur photographers. About 150.000 people visit this place during a few weeks of bird migration. That is a lot, but it doesn’t feel crowded, maybe because people visit at all times during the day. Many find the early morning best, at sunrise, since the birds are flying in from their resting places in the middle of the lake then. I found it also interesting to see the crowds of birds during daytime, especially since they hardly react on people, contrary to what they do in nature. They have learned that the people stay behind the fences and are of no danger.

Above is a lovely couple, volunteers from the local community that runs a small café next to the church in the period of the crane dance. No fuss, just ordinary and Swedish. I like that. There are also two information centeres by the like. I like that too, good service and a lot of information about the birds and the history of this place.

The cranes used to rest in this place going north because of leftover potatoes from the farms. The potatoes were used in liquor factories, but they closed a long time ago. Today the nature managment is feeding the birds with barley, actually tons of it, since the birds get about 300 grams each every day. Markus Ekman (above) are one of the volunteers, and the buckets are not for the main bird population but for people who are going to spend the night in photo hides, to get close to the birds in the morning. Otherwise the birds feed is distributed by specially designed tractors. By the way, there are a lot of cranes at the lake just now, I checked the statistics, and on 25 September there was 10.840 cranes there. They are counted every other day in the season. There are more photos in my Hornborgasjön photo gallery. And if you missed my other post on the cranes, here is a link. I also made a short post in April, just after visitinmg Hornborgasjön, and here is that link. And I can recommend this post by my blogging friend Leya, she was there at about the same time as me and here is her post.