Birding Sweden Stockholm Skåne Guided Tours

Birding Sweden: Stockholm and Skåne guided tours

Birding Stockholm and Skåne, Sweden

Sweden is beautiful and serene.  If you love birds, boats, and maritime history, and spending time on and by the sea, this trip is for you.  Sweden is a special place, and we will be visiting unique locations in both Stockholm and Skåne. Skåne is the southernmost province of Sweden. We will go birding and walking in the big forests of the Kullaberg Peninsula, the sunny seashore cliffs of Hovs Hallar, and the city parks of Stockholm. There will be time for birding, hiking, nature loving, exploring, shopping, wandering, resting, museum visits, boating, meeting locals and eating lots of salmon and herring.  Come to Sweden and have some fun and see a bunch of new birds to add to your list.

 Printable Bird List 
(This is a checklist of birds that we’ve seen on this trip)

• 2025:
• June 19 – 30, 2025, spots left = 0
• 2026:
• June 6 – 17, 2026, spots left = 6
• Group Size: 6 travelers plus guides
• Trip Length: 12 days
• Rates: Rate per person = $4,750 (double occupancy), an additional $1,200 for single occupancy.
• Rates include:  Transfers and transportation within Sweden, lodging, breakfast, lunch, dinner, group tours, entrance fees, and basic travel insurance. 
• Not included: International airfare, customs & immigration fees and visas, alcohol, trip cancellation insurance. 
• Adventure level:  Easy, please check the "Welcome" page for definition  
• Reservations:  To reserve a spot on the trip, a non-refundable $800 per person deposit is required, and the non-refundable balance is due six months prior to the trip.

Summer weather:  During the month of June, temperatures can vary from the mid-40s to the mid-60s for both Stockholm and Skåne. The skies will be partly cloudy with only an occasional chance of rain.  Sunrise will be approximately 3:30am and sunset at 11:00pm.

Lodging

Nights 1 – 4: On this tour, the first four nights of lodging will be aboard a permanently moored boat in the Stockholm waterway. Although the rooms are small and “cozy”, like most ships, the rooms have beds “on the floor”, meaning no bunks and there are waterbirds that you can view from your boat cabin:  Great Cormorants, Herring Gulls, Tufted Ducks, Common Mergansers, and Black-headed Gulls. Our first choice for this summer tour is always the  Den Röda Båten (The Red Boat):  Den Röda Båten is a wood and steel tugboat boat.  Built in 1914, it was previously a working boat that served the Göta Canal. There are two sister boats moored next to each other.

Nights 5 – 7:  Three nights at the Lydinge Resort located in the Skåne countryside.  This resort has forested trails for walking and birding, as well as numerous other resort activities.

Nights 8 – 10:  We will have “sea view” rooms with porches at the Hovs Hallar Hotel and Nature Resort for three nights. From the hotel there are trails that lead into the nature reserve and down to the beach.  There is good birding right from your porch.

Night 11:  The Best Western Park Airport Hotel, which is a 10-minute drive from the Stockholm Arlanda Airport.

Museums:  In addition to birding, there will be time to visit museums and there are a lot of museums in Stockholm. We highly recommend the Vasa Museum, National Museum, Nordic Museum, and the Medieval Museum, just to name a few. Just let us know what your interests are, and we will find the right activities for you. And these museums are nicely located on islands that are also good birding spots.

Vasa Museum:  The Vasa is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing for only a few minutes into its maiden voyage in August 1628. After most of the valuable bronze cannons were salvaged in the 17th century, the ship was largely forgotten until it was located in the late 1950s in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm harbor. In 1961 the ship was brought to the surface and with much of it still intact, it was restored and now is open for viewing at the Vasa Museum.  It truly is amazing because the ship is very large, 226 feet long, and 90% of the boat is still original. 

Basic Itinerary

Day 1:  Arrival in Stockholm Sweden
Flights are overnight with arrival on day one of the tour.  Most flight arrive early in the morning. You will be greeted at the airport and transferred to the hotel.  This involves a 20-minute train ride on the high-speed Arlanda Express, followed by a short taxi ride from Stockholm Central to our hotel. Activities for the day will depend on your arrival time in Stockholm.  Lodging for the next 4-nights is on Den Röda Båten (The Red Boat).

Day 2:  Stockholm
A short walk from our boat hotel are the small islands of Långholmen and Reimersholme, both of which are excellent for birding.  There are nice easy trails to view both forest birds and water birds. These small islands have an eBird List of 77 species. Our lodging on the Röda Båten, is located on the island of Södermalm. We will spend the day birding the parks and trails that are close to our boat.  In the late afternoon, we will head to Gamla Stan (the historic old town), for a walk through the old cobble stone streets and then dinner.

Day 3: Stockholm
Stockholm is a city of fourteen islands, which makes it especially convenient for boats, sightseeing, walking, and birding year-round.  The city is full of great history, art, music, museums and restaurants.  There are palaces, cathedrals and many historic buildings to visit. The Stockholm subway is considered the longest art gallery in the world at 68 miles in length.  Stockholm stretches across fourteen islands where Lake Mälaren flows into the Baltic Sea. The original old town is known as Gamla Stan, and the island of Gamla Stan is the heart of the city.  It is a charming, picturesque historic neighborhood. Just outside of the Stockholm waterway and along the Baltic Sea coast is the island chain known as the Stockholm archipelago, which includes approximately 24,000 islands and islets. The area has been inhabited since the Stone Age and was founded as a city in 1252.  On our second day in Stockholm, we will visit Gamla Stan and a few downtown parks for birding. The island adjacent to Gamla Stan is Skeppsholmen, and besides great museums, Skeppsholmen has an eBird List of 89 species.   In the late afternoon, we will have a 3-hour dinner cruise through the canals and waterways. 

Day 4: Stockholm
In the morning, a bird-walk through the Djurgården.  The Djurgården is one of Stockholm’s fourteen islands and most of it is a nature preserve.  Even deer and fox can be seen in the preserve, which covers nearly 700 acres, (about two-thirds of the island). It has an eBird List of 153 species. The other third of the island is home to numerous museums. Some of our favorites are: The Vasa, The Viking Museum, the Museum of Wrecks, Abba, and the Nordisk Museum.   Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and is rich in maritime history. The Vasa is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing for only a few minutes into its maiden voyage in August 1628. After most of the valuable bronze cannons were salvaged in the 17th century, the ship was largely forgotten until it was located in the late 1950s in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm harbor. In 1961 the ship was brought to the surface and with much of it still intact, it was restored and now is open for viewing at the Vasa Museum.  It truly is amazing because the ship is very large, 226 feet long and 90% of the boat is still original.  The Vasa Museum is located on an island called the Djurgården, which was a game park created for the Royals in 1579.  This area is great for birding and walking where you can find:  Hooded Crow, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Eurasian Jays, Great Cormorant, Grey Heron, Eurasian Treecreeper, Green Finch, Eurasian Siskin, Blue Tits, Great Tits, and Eurasian Magpie.

Day 5:  Travel to Skåne, Sweden
From Stockholm we will take the train to Helsingborg, which is located along the southern coast of Sweden, directly across the water from Helsingør, Denmark. It is a 5-hour train ride, and we will leave Stockholm early in the morning so we can arrive in Helsingborg in the early afternoon.  The water that separates Sweden and Denmark at this location is only 2.5 miles wide and is called the Öresund (Swedish) or Øresund (Danish). The names simply translate as “the Sound”.  From Helsingborg you can look across the sound towards Denmark and see the Kronborg Castle. This castle is the setting for Shakespeare 's Hamlet and in the play, it is called "Elsinore". There are ferry crossings every 20 minutes and the ferry takes 20-minutes.  We will spend a few hours in Helsingborg, where there are parks and castles for birding and walking. There will be time to visit the Kronborg Castle, if you choose. From Helsingborg it is a 20-minute drive to the Lydinge Resort, where we will spend the next 3-nights.

Day 6:  Höganäs and the Kullaberg Peninsula
A full day of exploring the Kullen Peninsula including the neighboring open areas of farmland and riparian areas; wonderful walks and historic sites to visit while we bird. The Kullaberg Peninsula is a very beautiful part of Sweden.  There are lots of birds and natural wonders here, from seabirds at the lighthouse cliffs to the passerines of the forest.  The Kullen eBird List has 215 species. We will spend two days on the peninsula exploring the seacoast and the big forests of the area. On our first day here, we will mostly be visiting sites on the east coast of the peninsula.

Day 7: Jonstorp and the Kullaberg Peninsula 
A second full day of visiting sites on the Kullaberg Peninsula. We will visit west coast sites and the Jonstorp area, which has an eBird List of 209 species. We will also have time to visit the trails at our lodging for early morning bird walks, as well an evening walks.  Don’t forget that the sun doesn’t set until 11:00pm! Our resort is located next to three nature reserves:  Hyllingedammen, Hyllinge Skog, and the Brogårda Våtmark wildlife refuge.

Day 8:  Travel to Hovs Hallar and the Bjäre Peninsula
After a morning bird walk, we will head to Hovs Hallar Hotel and the beautiful Hovs Hallar Nature Preserve, which has many miles of coastal trails to explore, both easy and challenging walks.  The cliffs are home to seabirds and shrub habitat for many birds. The day will be a full day of birding.  The drive from the Lydinge Resort to Hovs Hallar is only 1-hour, and so there will be numerous birding stops along the way:  Hasslarps Ponds, Djurholmamossen National Reserve, Hembygdsparken, Himmelstorp, Slottet, and Grevie Backar.  Our lodging for the next three nights will be at the Hovs Hallar Hotel and Nature Resort.

Day 10:   Torekov and Hallands Väderö
From Hovs Hallar, it is a short drive to the small seaside village of Torekov and then a 20-minute ferry ride out to the island of Hallands Väderö which is a very special small island with hiking trails and woods and a beautiful rocky shoreline.  Hallands Väderö has an eBird List of 131 species.

Day 11:  Travel to Stockholm
From our lodging at Hovs Hallar, it is a 1-hour drive back to Helsingborg where we will take the train back to Stockholm Central.  From Stockholm Central, we will take the Arlanda Express to the airport and then a shuttle to our airport Hotel.  As we travel on the train through the Sweden’s countryside, we often see raptors, moose, and deer from the train. Our lodging for the night:  Best Western Park Airport Hotel

Day 12:  Fly day
Flights usually leave in the morning, and you will be transferred to the airport for your flight home.  Activities for the day depend on your departure time. If you have a late day flight, there are birding options for you:  1.5 miles from our hotel is the Steningedalens Nature Reserve.