| Snow is in the air and the wind keeps whipping the water to the shore. The temperature is below zero and my skin is burned red as as if it was the first sunny days in May. But the day isn´t May even though I try to keep a picture in my head of those days. Days with a landscape awakening in all different colour and sounds. In May, I can just sit looking towards one of the hundreds of stone walls that crosses the landscape and just listen to the sounds of all the arriving birds.
One of these walls gives me a place to huddle and hide behind. As usual, I carry all my equipment with me: the sketchbook, the telescope, pens and watercolours and so on. The rucksack gives me good shelter from the holes in the wall where the wind makes its noise.
The place is empty, the days are gone and I start to wonder what I am doing out here? In a kind of compulsory way I bring out my sketchbook and land on a page dated fourth May:
"A serrenade of sounds have followed me on my walk to my spot where I can follow the land of Pied Avocets. Everywhere nestling shorebirds who more or less see me and try to alert others of my presence. There are two or maybe three spots where I always keep the telescope above my head. Just in protection to avoid the most aggressive Arctic terns.
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The salt-marsh meadow is still filled with water here and there. Small tufts gives the birds perfect places to nest on. The Pied Avocets have chosen a place where the water is stil present through the summer. It seemes to be on the lowest point in the landscape and it has a drained effect on the surrounding area.
The water, the grass, the light and the black and white collored Avocets creates a place with different expressions. Especially mornings and evenings create a special atmosphere that changes constantly, perfect for a painter looking for inspiration. 
The first minutes of sketching, the mind is a part of the process. The sketches become more like drawing and the spontaneity from the lines is far away. The next goes faster. I just put the line on the paper without thinking if the line was correct or not. The fastest sketches are often the ones that finally have something to say"
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Although my clothes are the most modern in their way and built for a winter climate, the wind presses the coldness in to my naked skin. I start walking back. No terns attacking me this time, only a nasty wind that tries to move my footsteps on their way. I keep thinking: "a couple hundred meters more and I can rest behind some old fishing cottages" My walk makes me thinking of the first steps of the running youngsters of Pied Avocets. Was it in early May or later this year?
"A grey day, no rain, no wind, just a grey day. A day when the eyes are relived from the pressure that the light in late May early June can give. Grey feathers, no colour, just grey and white feathers. A day when they are relived from the scales. A grey day with new members running on the ground, grey as the day"
Warm and shelter, back in the car. Today there was no indication that this is a land where thousands of birds breed, nest and find their rest, so empty. It was another land and in different time. But for me it still was the land of the Pied Avocets.
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