My first birding of 2022 was to my local patch of Klagshamn. The combination of sunny, cloudless weather with mild wind (a rare combination in Malmö this time of year) made it an enjoyable outing, I wanted to stay out the entire day.

In total, I added a 28 new species to my Scanian list in 2021, taking it to 214 species seen in the province since I started keeping a list in January 2016.

Over the course of 5 Saturdays in October 2021, we saw grand total of 88 species during our morning birding sessions. The walks were relaxed and the objective was to take it easy and simply go birding during the peak southbound migration to see what we find. No stress, pure therapy.

I had the pleasure of chatting with fellow birder and podcaster Magnus Olsson on his fågelpodden (The Bird Podcast). We had a wide-ranging discussion and this is the first of a two-part series.

In mid-September I got an email that said “ditt arbete med Birding Therapy som en av de nominerade av Årets Miljöhjälte i kategorin biologisk mångfald” (your work with Birding Therapy is one of the nominees for this year’s Environmental Hero award in the biodiversity category"). At first I didn’t know what to think and thought it was a phishing/malware type of spam. But then it sunk in that this is real, and it’s difficult to put into words how I felt. I didn’t think that anyone was paying attention to the small side project I started to get more people, particularly underrepresented groups, out into nature and birding.

I had the pleasure of taking well-known Somali journalist Abdisalam Hereri out birding in Malmö. Mr. Hereri has been traveling across Sweden and reported on the Somali community here. We talked about birding, what it is and why it’s an interesting activity. We also touched upon the benefits that nature provides for society and the importance of its conservation.

Over the course of 5 Saturdays in May 2021, I guided a total of 17 participants around 4 locations across Malmö. We spent a total of 15 hours of slow-paced birding and saw grand total of 78 species during our morning birding sessions. All the birding walks were fully booked.