Watching thousands of Swedish birds

TWO OF Europe’s greatest bird-watching spectacles are getting under way: raptors cranes and storks are converging on Gibraltar and the Bosporus strait before crossing the sea for Africa, where they will spend the winter.

These locations are justly famous. However, the continent’s largest concentrations of raptors are to be found much further north. At this time of year, Sweden’s southern province Skåne, pronounced ‘Skow-nay’, has more raptors than anywhere else and offers some of the best bird-watching in Europe.

Each autumn, tens of millions of Swedish birds are joined by others from Finland and northern Russia. As the nights lengthen and temperatures fall, the birds head south towards Skåne, the apex of a funnel which becomes a gigantic bottleneck.