Sign of spring: First crane arrives at Lake Hornborgasjön

The crane was spotted at lunchtime on Friday by Hornborgasjön site manager Sofie Stålhand, who first heard a sound from the sky.

"I thought I heard it first, but then we saw it too. It has been a cold start to the year, so it feels very nice that the first crane has now arrived. Now we are really ready for spring," she says in a press release.

From the time the first crane is seen, it usually takes a couple of weeks for the large numbers to gather. For a few weeks around the end of March and the beginning of April, around 30,000 cranes pass through Hornborgasjön every year.

This year's arrival is slightly later than last year's, when the first crane was seen on February 21.