Winter birds in the knot. Photo: Ingemar Pettersson
Now it’s time again for Birdlife Sweden‘s (Swedish Ornithological Association) arrangement “Winter birds in the knot” (VIK). Unlike many other years, we have a snowy winter landscape where the forecast predicts freezing temperatures throughout the period.
Winter birds in the knot means that you should study your bird feeder that you have at home, at work or for the younger ones at your school. Counting starts tomorrow, Friday, and continues over the weekend through Monday, January 26. For a number of years now, Friday and Monday have been added to suit the bird watchers who monitor a bird feeding at work or at school.
Winter birds in the knot saw the light of day back in 2006 and the bird count has only grown in popularity since then. In recent years, Birdlife Sweden has received around 20,000 reports. The counting is done so that you count your diners during the period and report the highest number you see at the same time of the same species. The result is then sent to Birdlife in one way or another, it can be reported via the website vinterfaglar.se or via an app that you download. For bird lovers who have not taken to digital, there is still the option of sending in the report by regular mail. In addition to the fact that the event is a fun event that usually gets a lot of attention in the media, certain information can be read out of all the data.
It is possible to see different trends when you collect a lot of information year after year, even if sometimes both the wrong species and number slip into the reports. The goshawk always sits unchallenged on the throne as the most numerous bird at our Swedish bird tables. Most of the time, you have a reasonable chance of guessing reasonably correctly on the top five list, but a lot is controlled by the weather both at the moment and how the weather has been since the fall. In 2024, the gray warbler ended up in second place when, in its search for food, it ended up at many of the country’s bird feeders. A species such as the gray siskin is often nomadic in winter, which means that they move long distances to places where there is food. A winter favorite for many birdwatchers is the domhern, and it seems to have a rising trend, especially in the northern parts of the country, writes Birdlife on the website. It may be a coincidence governed by the availability of food such as rowan berries.
All statistics can be viewed at vinterfaglar.se and there you can filter by year, county and down to municipality level. We’ll see which species can surprise us this year in numbers or maybe a really rare bird will show up at some bird feeder. In the picture we see a real rarity, a ruby nightingale photographed in Vargön.
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