High Latitude Birder: Smew

Showing posts with label Smew. Show all posts

07 March, 2011

Spring is here again!

Viinikanlahti bay in Tampere 7.3.2010

The winter is over, in spite of the fact that we will get more snow in the end of this week. I heard the first Herring Gulls from my backyard already on 2nd of March and saw 18 of them today in Viinikanlahti bay, in Tampere. In addition to gulls, there was also 10 Goosanders, 2 Smews and about 100 Mallards. Smews and Mallards have been there over the winter, but Goosanders have arrived from south.

Today was also the first time when I tested my new scope while birding. Zeiss 65 T* FL, excellent scope, I love it!

Soon here should be Snow Buntings and Skylarks, can't wait for them. Spring, hurry up, kick the rest of the winter away!

Smews

31 January, 2010

A better winter birding day

On 24th of January I made an urban birding trip with my younger son Roni. Our first target was Koukkujärvi dump in Nokia. Disgusting smell, especially in the area of organic waste - but lots of birds: 1500 Western Jackdaws (Corvus monedula), 50 Common Magpies (Pica pica), 30 Hooded Crows (Corvus cornix) and 6 Common Ravens (Corvus corax) were the most visible ones.

Also lot's of smaller ones - a very nice mixed flock of 120 European Greenfinches (Carduelis chloris), 20 Common Redpolls (Carduelis flammea), 1 Arctic Redpoll (Carduelis hornemanni), 4 Twites (Carduelis flavirostris) and 4 Eurasian Tree Sparrows (Passer montanus).

Both Twite and Arctic Redpoll were lifers for Roni, so the boy was very happy! In addition to previous, there was also lonely Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) and Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major).

From Nokia we drove to Tampere and tried to find White-throated Dipper (Cinclus cinclus) from Pärrinkoski rapids, but unfortunately the rapids were totally frozen, no open water at all, so no room for Dippers. Shame... Small hightlight was still the fresh footprints of the European Otter (Lutra lutra), although we did not see the mammal.

After that we drove to city center of Tampere, where the Tammerkoski flows so fast that there's always some open water. Lot's of Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) , two Goosanders (Mergus merganser), 1 female Long-tailed Duck aka Oldsquaw (Clangula hyemalis), 1 male Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula) and 1 elegant male Smew (Mergus albellus).

IMHO, Long-tailed Duck is a very dull name for that beautiful arctic duck, I prefer much more the old American name Oldsquaw!

At this point it was already afternoon, so it was time get back to home. Roni was very happy and so was daddy!

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Author

Olli Haukkovaara

email: olli.haukkovaara @ proton.me

Valkeakoski, Finland

06 April, 2008

Taiga Bean Geese, White-tailed Eagles, Eurasian Bitterns and a lot more

Birding with my kids today - we spent the whole afternoon watching birds and enjoying the good weather. Our first target was the bird observation tower of lake Kortejärvi in Urjala. It's very nice place with good facilities; parking place, toilets, information canopy and a perfect large tower itself.

I could have spent there all day, but when you go birding with kids, they set the time limits per location - here it was 45 minutes. During that time we saw a lots of interesting birds; for example 123 Taiga Bean Geese (Anser fabalis), 2 White-tailed Eagles (Haliaetus albicilla), 10 Smews (Mergus albellus), 2 Northern Pintails (Anas acuta), 8 Eurasian Cranes (Grus grus), 2 Reed Buntings (Emberiza schoeniclus), 4 Common Teals (Anas crecca), Western Marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus), Eurasian Bittern (Botaurus stellaris) and many others.

After Kortejärvi we drove to Kylmäkoski and Viiala. In Kylmäkoski we saw a Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) - a very handsome male. In Viiala, after boys ate their snacks, we decided to check the waterfowls of Sitonsaari. It was a good choice, there were lots of birds around; about 250 Eurasian Coots (Fulica atra), 8 Smews (Mergus albellus), about 25 Eurasian Wigeons (Anas penelope), Eurasian Bittern (Botaurus stellaris) again and 24 Common Pochards (Aythya ferina) - just to mention few of them.

The most visible bird today was the Whooper Swan (Gygnus cygnus) - in total we saw at least 155 of them in 10 places.

So, 8 new species for 2008 today and many nice experiences. Compared to yesterday, this day was almost perfect!