What a day! Geese from dawn to dusk and much more!

 

Typical flock of the day; Barnacle Geese

Believe it or not, it WAS cold!

As I told on Monday, the weather in Finland changed dramatically. And actually it changed in Tuesday even more dramatically than the weathermen forecasted. Northern wind turned out be not 7 m/s but 14 m/s and in gusts even more, almost a storm! Temperature dropped down to 0,5°C and the cloudy day turned to snow squalls... 

By the way, instead of a normal birder I must be an addicted birderfreak. No other appearance of birdwatcher get out for dusk to dawn to stare the sky when temperature is close to zero degrees Celcius and freezing gale and snow squalls from north rule the atmosphere. But... it was really cool to watch almost panic-like drag race migration towards south!

I woke up at 5:30, had a breakfast and packed everything. Soon I was on the top of nearby water tower of Jyräänmäki. It's a perfect spot for migration watching, located on the top of hill and offers 360 degrees view over the surrounding landscapes.

Sun had not even rose up, when the first flock of geese, 40 Barnacle Geese, flew over the tower, barking loud. Nice start, I guess the migration had begun already during the night. Soon I found more geese flocks; Bean Geese, Brant Geese and naturally many flocks of unidentified geese further away. During morning I saw totally 1285 geese. But it was not just the geese that were migrating this morning. I saw also 585 Common Cranes, well that's nothing when compared to numbers in South-West Finland where a migration of over 20 000 cranes were seen today! In addition to above, I saw also Arctic Divers (aka Black-throated Loons), Long-tailed Ducks, Scaups, lot's of Wood Pigeons, Pied Wagtails and Chaffinches. Nice morning, indeed, but after four hours I had to get something warm to drink and the lunch, so I headed home and made a hot cup of mulled wine and sandwich.

Goodbye Common Cranes, see you again in spring 2015!

So, what next? After couple of phone calls, I decided to go to Verhonkulma pier on the shore of lake Vanajanselkä. Another addicted birderfreak, my good friend Ilkka Hakala was already there and geese migration seemed to be even more active in that direction. When I got there, several flocks of geese were on the sight, cool! And it continued till the evening... The total number of geese in Verhonkulma today was 13 348 in 147 flocks!

Some of the Barnacle Geese preferred to migrate near the lake surface.

Of course there were lot's of other birds to see in Verhonkulma too, like two adult White-tailed Eagles, Common Scoters, Oldsquaws aka Long-tailed Ducks, 1 migrating Dunlin, Hen Harrier, Grey Herons etc.

By the way, the finnstick is absolutely mandatory in this kind of migration watching session, see the photo below. Imagine keeping the binoculars up by only with your hands for 12 hours...

Ilkka, finnstick and the day long migration watching session

This kind of migration days are one of the best events that Mother Nature can offer us. It's a shame that only few birders participate in these rare events. Birders, when nature offers it's best, get out and enjoy!

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Author

Olli Haukkovaara

email: olli.haukkovaara @ proton.me

Valkeakoski, Finland

Migrating birds stopped at coast

 

Jackdaw in feeder today

Spring has started, no doubt about it. First Rooks, Stock Doves, Wood Pigeons, Northern Lapwings and Skylarks have arrived to Finland but almost all of them have stopped to southern coast. Only some waterfowls, gulls and Snow Buntings have continued to inland. Too much snow everywhere, only some open water in streams and rivers.

This means that we will probably have to wait for them still for weeks. But after that there will be a huge rush, and big flocks of birds in all those places where snow has melted away. I'm really looking for "a good old birding spring", like we had when I was a kid. During last 10 or even more years, the birds have disappeared to forests almost immediately after they arrived. Now we may have a chance to see them again in big flocks in fields!

Today I went birding with my younger son Roni. Highlight of the trip was 3 adult White-tailed Eagles on the ice of lake Rauttunselkä, south from Valkeakoski. There was also 3 Herring Gulls stalking at fishermen in Viidennumero. I hope they got something to eat, otherwise they have to return to Baltic Sea soon. Later we saw also a beatiful old male Goshawk. Shame that I didn't get a photo of it, it was so close and so gorgeous.

While waiting for migrating birds, I think I'll concentrate next on nocturnal birding and get out late in the evenings to listen for owls...

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Author

Olli Haukkovaara

email: olli.haukkovaara @ proton.me

Valkeakoski, Finland

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!

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Author

   Olli Haukkovaara

   email: olli.haukkovaara @ proton.me

   Valkeakoski, Finland

Return of winter

Winter came back few days ago and most of the early migrants turned back to south. Weather report says that this cold weather will continue still over the Easter...

Anyway, I did today a nice birding tour around southern parts of Pirkanmaa county with my older son Petro. The highlights of the day were certainly two White-tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) in icy lake Rauttunselkä, some 15 kilometers south from our home. In addition to those we saw also several Swans, both Whooper (Cygnus cygnus) and Mute Swans (Cygnus olor), 3 Eurasian Collared Doves (Streptopelia decaocto) in Viiala, 2 Common Redpolls (Carduelis flammea), 3 Common Ravens (Corvus corax), 6 Bohemian Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus) and many others. Most of them we saw very well and we got also several nice photos.



Eurasian Collared Doves (Streptopelia decaocto) in Akaa, Viiala

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Author

Olli Haukkovaara

email: olli.haukkovaara @ proton.me

Valkeakoski, Finland

White-tailed Eagle

 

Today I saw a White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) once again. So it startles inland birder each and every time. In the coast you would get bored(?) at them, but here in Häme these eagles are not daily tidbits. This observation has, by the way, a certain by-plot; I called to my friend Tom and told him about White-tailed Eagles that were seen in lake Rauttunselkä in Valkeakoski. Tom had never seen White-tailed Eagle in his life and in fact he probably had thrown in the towel, as 2/3 of his life he had waited to see one - in vain... I teased him a bit and said that I'll go now to Viidennumero to watch White-tailed Eagle - and so it happened! This incident provoked him, so he decided to give one more try - and finally he saw that king of birds. :-) If you understand finnish, you can read his whole story here.

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Author

Olli Haukkovaara

email: olli.haukkovaara @ proton.me

Valkeakoski, Finland