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| Juvenile Saker Falcon in Pori, photo copyright Henry Lehto |
Yesterday I received an alert, that there is a Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) in Pori, only about 147 km drive to west coast. So, I jumped to car, picked Risto Vilpas and Ville Työppönen with me. We were all excited about this twitching trip, as Saker Falcon would be a new tick for our own Finnish tick lists. The species is not a lifer for any of us, we have all seen it earlier abroad - but in Finland it's a mega tick, this is a fifth record in our country.
So, I pushed the pedal, but soon slowed down, as there was ice on the road and I had still summer tyres in my car. In Friday morning there had been multiple collisions on many roads, so in Saturday all people drove carefully in places where there was still ice on the road. Drive to Pori took about 20-30 minutes more than usual, but we made it.
The Saker Falcon was in the south side of Pori, in the fields of Pinomäki. Tens of twitchers were already there when we arrived - and more arrived all the time. It was great to see this species again, eight years has gone since I first time saw this species Hortobagy, Hungary.
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| Twitchers at Pinomäki, Pori |
At the moment, there is speculation in social media whether this individual can be considered tickable, as it has a ring in it's other leg which refers to a hunting hawk. Oh well, I don't care about it. I don't think that ring matters, the bird is young, wild and free. I wonder why no one questions the sightings of Common Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), and Grey Partridges (Perdix perdix), even though Finnish hunters generally keep them and release them for hunting.
