Evening at Vallonjärvi, testing the Olympus LS-P2 recorder

 

Whooper Swan was eating Water Horsetails in front of the tower 

After three days of summertime flu, I finally felt a bit better and decided to go for a short birding trip by bike. I cycled to lake Vallonjärvi and Heikkilänmetsä old taiga forest nature reserve. Lot's of mosquitoes everywhere, especially in the forest. But first I spent some twenty minutes in bird tower. Eurasian Hobby was chasing Swifts over the lake, with no luck. Coots had their nestlings, and so did the Whooper Swan and Common Cranes.

The Coot family

The "Ugly Duckling " with mama

Four Cranes and a Swift

Common Crane

In addition to the local Crane family also a flock of 4 + 1 non-breeding teenager Cranes visited the lake when I was there. They flew around the lake and continued somewhere to the nearby fields.

From the tower I hiked to Heikkilänmetsä forest and tested recording bird sounds with my new Olympus LS-P2. I really like it, it's small and handy, easy to use and high quality. Here's two examples; Common Chaffinch and Song Thrush. I tried to embed them to this blog but damn Google prevented it...

In the forest there were also lekking Eurasian Woodcocks, singing Chiffchaffs, Coal Tits, Blackcaps and many more. Just too dark in the cloudy evening to take photos of them. Soon it started raining and I decided to get back to home. Nice evening though!


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Author

Olli Haukkovaara

email: olli.haukkovaara @ proton.me

Valkeakoski, Finland