Wigeon Anas penelope

The Wigeon is a common breeding bird in the northern part of the country. Large flocks occur at different sites in south Sweden especially in some coastal areas in the southwest, along the west coast and on the islands of Öland and Gotland. Large flocks can also be seen in autumn in some lakes like Hornborgasjön. In the Foteviken area more than 20,000 have been counted in the autumn.

The September indices for the Wigeon show very marked fluctuations between different years probably mostly related to the timing of migration. Anyhow they show a very clear increase from the start of the counts until the mid-eighties, after that they fluctuated markedly around a much higher level than before. The level for the 2000-s was again higher fluctuating on a level. The overall long-term trend was significantly increasing. The Septemberindex for 2016 was the highest for the entire series but 2017 eas only slightly lower. The total for September 2018 was 30265. A large proportion of these Wigeons were counted at the famous bird lakes, Lake Tåkern (10700) and Lake Hornborgasjön (8043).

With the exception of the last few years almost no Wigeons were left in Sweden in January with the exception of the mildest winters, but during the last few years there has been a change and in January 1998 and 2000 more than 5,000 were found in Scania, the southernmost province of Sweden, whereas about 4000 were counted in January 1999.The increase continued and in January 2001 close to 8000 Wigeon were counted in south Sweden, the majority as in the other years at the coasts of Scania. In the following, colder winters numbers were lower. In January 2005, the numbers had once again increased and no less than 8200 Wigeons were counted in Sweden. Even if January 2007 was extremely mild, the number of Wigeon counted was lower, probably due to a dispersion effect, man wigeon staying on open inland waters not included in the counts. January 2008 was also mild and there was an all-time high count for the Wigeon with between 11000 and 12000 counted. Numbers counted in the cold winters 2010 were appreciably lower, but still there were some flocks wintering along the west coast of Sweden. January 2012 was once again a mild winter with the highest total of Wigeon recorded during the midwinter counts, 13400. The total for 2019 was the nighest since the start of the counts with no less than 18000 recorded, 14000 of which were found in the southwest of Scania, the southernmost province of Sweden.

For the West-Central European population an icrease of about 2% per year was reported for the period 1976 to 2016. In Sweden the indices showed an increase of 19.2 % per year for 1971 to 2019, but the increase mostly happened after year 1990.

At the country-wide coastal survey in January 2015 about 8800 were found at the coasts to be compared to 5600 at the preceeding country-wide survey in 2004 and only 7 in January 1971. Most Wigeon were concentrated to the coasts in the Öresund with some small flocks on the islands of Öland and Gotland (see map).