Due to 24 hour birding rally of my local birding club on 5th - 6th of September, we decided to participate in World Shorebirds' Day in Sunday the 7th.
"We" is the "Valkeakosken Lintuharrastajat" i.e. the local ornithological society in Valkeakoski region. Our event was held in lake Ahtialanjärvi, in Lempäälä, southern Finland. Ahtialanjärvi is a famous wetland with muddy island Lokkisaari (Gull Island) in the middle of it.
The event started at 9 a.m. and ended at noon. During that time, total 14 people visited in lake and 12 of them visited the island too. All were birdwatchers, shame that we did not get "normal" people to come to event. Hopefully next year we can reach them better.
At 9:00, thick fog covered the whole wetland, visibility was really poor as you can see from the photo below, where is 3 Whooper Swans, only 50 meters away from the shore.
Fortunately the sun warmed the air fast, and soon the visibility was ok. The first visitors had arrived right after 9 a.m. and the chairman of the Lokkisaari organization started to arrange boats for them, to get to the island. In photo below, two boats of birders are approaching the Lokkisaari.
We counted the following waders:
Ruff ca 50
Wood Sandpiper ca 10
Common Snipe ca 10
Common Ringed Plover ca 10
Dunlin ca 10
Curlew Sandpiper 2
Little Stint 2
And the best, a rare visitor from North America: Pectoral Sandpiper 1
Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos) Photo: Kari Isokivijärvi
When you watch the lake Ahtialanjärvi from Lokkisaari island, you suddenly enter in to the totally an other world. The active conservationists Rainer Mäkelä and Tatu Itkonen of Lokkisaari organization have done great job to waders, as you can see from the photo below:
Panorama photo of the Lokkisaari, please click the photo☝to see it in original size.
Next year again! In the last photo is our information spot on the shore of the lake Ahtialanjärvi, Juha Leuhtonen is looking something with scope, Pekka Marjomaa is behind him.
My son Roni turned 15 last week and he wished for a full day birding trip to southeast Finland as a gift. Well, what could I do but agree :) On Saturday morning, 17 of May, we woke up at 5 a.m., had a quick breakfast and jumped into our car.
Montagu's Harrier (Circus pygargus) at Kantelejärvi
We took the highway to south and turned to east at Hyvinkää, our first destination was lake Kantele at Pukkila. I parked the car on the south side of the lake, there was a good view to whole area. Thrush Nightingale was singing behind us, some Barn Swallows and Common Swifts were up in the sky, two Geese were flying east and lonely Whooper Swan was resting at the lake. And then I saw it! Montagu's Harrier was approaching us from the other side of the lake!
Gorgeous male, cool! Finally it came pretty close to us and we got a very good view of it :) Soon it disappeared, probably landed somewhere. We saw still a pair of Marsh Harriers, but as they are very common here where we live, we didn't pay much attention to them, time to move on!
And the trip continued further east. We stopped here and there, enjoyed the views to rivers and rapids, no hurry, we had all the day ahead. About an hour later, we arrived to Pyhtää. Few days before there had been 12 Dotterels and as it would be a lifer for Roni, we decided to to check the place where they had been. Due to highway road constructions, the access to site was bit complicated, but finally we found the route. And as we stopped in the middle of the fields, Skylarks singing around us, we soon saw 2 Dotterels, beautiful Arctic waders. And a lifer for Roni!
Dotterel (Charadrius morinellus), not the bird in Pyhtää but few days earlier in Akaa. They seem to prefer these bald fields, instead of grassy ones.
Next to Hamina. According to Tiira, there had been a Marsh Sandpiper a day before, so we just could not drive by. We arrived to Metsänkylä floods at 10 a.am., the weather was getting warmer all the time and the air shimmered already disturbingly... I got immediately worried whether we will find the Marsh Sandpiper or not. I found soon lot's of Ruffs, Wood Sandpipers, some Common Greenshanks and Common Redshanks but not the Marsh Sandpiper. I almost gave up, but then noticed a good candidate. Fortunately it made a short flight and I saw the long, narrow white wedge in the back and the long toes behind the tail. Marsh Sandpiper! Roni managed to see the bird as well, the second lifer for my son today!
From Metsänkylä we drove to Lupinlahti bird observation tower, mainly to have a short lunch break. While enjoying delicious sandwiches, we realised that Arktika (the massive migration of the Arctic waterfowl and waders) was going on and with power! Huge flocks of Barnacle Geese, flocks after flocks, all the time... During lunch we counted roughly about 10 000 geese!
Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis) played the main role in Arktika while we were in the coast. Photo: Roni Haukkovaara
In Lupinlahti we saw also Arctic Terns, heard the Great Reed Warbler and Eurasian Bittern. Perfect place for a lunch :)
Roni was anxious to see the King Eider, which had been reported from Virolahti, so we took off and drove again towards east. During low speed driving, we kept the car windows open and picked some nice species along the road from Ravijoki to Leerviiki; Icterine Warbler and Common Rosefinch, both new to my year list. We arrived soon to shore of Leerviiki, there were lot's of birders watching the Geese migration and waiting for the King Eider to show himself... but it was hiding behind a small island. Damn! Still some additions my year list, like Parasitic Jaeger and Common Eider - but where were the Long-tailed Ducks and Common Scoters, we didn't see any of them!
We decided to get back to Leerviiki later and headed to inland, to check the local wetlands, Vilkkiläntura and Lintulahti and easter fields, trying to find something nice like Ortolan Bunting or perhaps a Greater Spotted Eagle. Soon the Rare Bird Alert told that a Black Kite was approaching us from Ravijoki! Cool! But... it never showed up :( It must have turned slightly and flew behind the trees to Russia...
Oh, well... let's try the Ortolan Bunting from the fields of Vaalimaa.... But we took the wrong road and suddenly found ourselves from the road to Miehikkälä. I was about to make a U-turn but then remembered that someone had reported a Lesser Grey Shrike from Miehikkälä. Hmm... why not? Soon we were in Kavalanmäki, where the Shrike should be. We stopped behind other cars and asked from the birders we saw there about the Shrike. They said that the Shrike is about 200 metres behind us, but there is an unidentified rare eagle coming to our direction from Väkevänjärvi! Oh, ok! Let's wait then... But the eagle never came. Instead, we saw a male Golden Oriole, Red-backed Shrike and migrating Black-tailed Godwit. Nice! Especially the Golden Oriole was cool to see!
After that we went to place where the Lesser Grey Shrike should be. And there it was! :)
Lesser Grey Shrike (Lanius minor) in Miehikkälä
Even though it was not a lifer for neither of us, it was nice to see and great addition to my year list. :)
We continued to lake Väkevänjärvi, stayed there some time and photographed local birds and plants. We were all time very close to Russia, the border zone was often right next to road.
Better not to enter to the Border Zone
And in some places the Russia is REALLY close, as you can see below!
There it is.... The Russia.
From Miehikkälä we drove back to Vaalimaa and Virojoki, trying to find something nice, like Ortolan Bunting, Turtle Dove or what ever Southeastern candies... But no, just the usual suspects. Then the Rare Bird Alert told that the King Eider is visible, so back to Leirviiki! When we got there, it was behind the same small island again. Bummer!!! Roni was very disappointed, the King Eider was number one in his wishlist... Well, let's try again later in the evening. We visited some other sites nearby, saw the Red-breasted Flycatcher, had a snack, checked the old migration watching tower, Roni was collecting stones... I already joked to Roni that we must do something to please Sendari, to get the King Eider. As there was no place to sacrifice to Sendari, nor we had nothing to sacrifice, I promised to build statue for her...
Soon after that we went back to shoreline, for the last time. I turned the scope to Heinäsaari, the small island where the King Eider had been hiding. And there it was! :)
Lifer nr 3, King Eider!
King Eider (Somateria spectabilis), not so good photo, but a proof anyway ;)
At that time it was already 20:30 and we had a long drive back to home ahead. Roni wanted to see the old quarry of Pyterlahti and the old center of Hamina, so we spent still some time in the southeast. During drive to home, we saw several Eurasian Woodcocks and huge Moose next to the road. Short evening snack at Nastola and back at home 00:10. Total kilometers 730,2.
Three and half days of hardcore birding in Estonia, i.e. birding from sunrise to sunset. Result: 140 000 birds, 137 species. I love birding in Estonia... Day 1.
My annual fall trip to Western Estonia (mainly Läänemaa and Saaremaa counties) with Rainer Häggblom started on 3rd of October from Helsinki.
When you go birding to Estonia from Finland, the ferry trip from Helsinki to Tallinn can be turned to few hours pelagic trip. It's not comparable to pelagic in big oceans, but it's still possible to see for example alcids and skuas. This time we did not see any skuas, but 2 migrating Razorbills (Alca torda) and 1 unidentified Razorbill / Common Guillemot. Also Purple Sandpiper (Calidris maritima) in outermost islands of Finland, in Halliluoto, was a nice observation.
Cliffs at Pakri peninsula
In Estonia, our first target was Pakri MKA near Paldiski. Great cliffs and perfect sea watching place, but not much birds at this time, just some migrating Long-tailed Ducks (Clangula hyemalis), Northern Pintails (Anas acuta), Common Eiders (Somateria mollissima) and Great Black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus). Also a sedentary Northern Shrike (Lanius excubitor), the first but not the last during this trip.
From Pakri we continued towards Matsalu. In Riisipere fields we saw an Asio sp. i.e. either Long-eared or Short-eared Owl, first Asio for me in Estonia.
Eurasian Nuthatch
Next longer stop wast at Koluvere Loss, an old castle. The highlights of the place were two Eurasian Nuthatches (Sitta europaea) and two Marsh Tits (Parus palustris). Both are common in Estonia, but rare in Finland. Ok, Nuthatch is scarce, not rare. In addition to those, there was also a possible Yellow-browed Warbler (Phylloscopus inornatus), but it disappeared too fast... shame.
Barnacle Geese and Northern Lapwings in Matsalu
After Koluvere we continued to Kullamaa, Kirbla and Lihula and saw quite a nice collection of raptors there: Eurasian Sparrow Hawks (Accipiter nisus), Common Buzzards (Buteo buteo), 2 gorgeous male and 2 female Hen Harriers (Circus cyaneus), Eurasian Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), several White-tailed Eagles (Haliaetus albicilla), Rough-legged Buzzard (Buteo lagopus) and the best species of the day - old female Montagu's Harrier (Circus pygargus), an exceptionally late observation. The geese were surprisingly low on numbers, only small flocks / few thousand birds. Jack Snipe (Lymnocryptes minimus) in Matsalu fields was a nice surprise too, first for me in Estonia.
From Matsalu we had to move soon to Virtsu harbor and the ferry to islands of Muhu and Saaremaa. Not much to tell about the ferry trip over Suur Väin strait, surprisingly few birds there, couple of migrating Red-throated Loons (Gavia stellata), sedentary Greater Scaups (Aythya marila) and Tufted Ducks (Aythya fuligula), that's all.
Small part of the birds in Väike Väin, in the evening of 3rd of October 2013
But.. if Suur Väin betrayed us, then another strait, Väike Väin, between islands of Muhu and Saaremaa, surprised us. The whole strait was full of birds! Mostly waterfowls, but also some waders, cranes and herons. Sun was already setting down and we quickly and carefully estimated that there was around 12 000 birds visible from our observation point. But the total number was much bigger, as we learned next day...
Day 2.
Hooting and screaming Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) woke up us few times during night in Rainer's farm in Lõmala. In the morning Winter Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) was singing and searching food from the yard and European Robin (Erithacus rubecula) was singing too, it felt almost like an early spring.
Phonescoped Peregrine
Quick breakfast, then off to the road again and to Sõrve peninsula, the most southern tip of Saaremaa. Morning migration was not very spectacular at this time, as the cold air outbreak few weeks earlier had already emptied taiga forests of Finland and Russia well. Still quite a lot of species, highlights were Twite (Carduelis flavirostris), Wood Lark (Lullula arborea) and juvenile Peregrine (Falco pergerinus) which showed us a wonderful hunting attempt, chasing waders, gulls, geese and cormorants.
In Sõrve we met also couple of other Finnish birders, Juha Sjöholm and Jände Nordblad. They had stayed in Sõrve Bird Observatory for some time already and made great observations. Take a look at Sõrve diary (in Finnish / Estonian only).
As the migration in Sõrve was so weak, we decided to leave soon and started to search for sedentary birds. We followed the coastal roads of peninsula to north, stopped here and there. At Rahuste laht bay we found 3 Canada Geese (Branta canadensis), relatively rare bird in Estonia, but not so special for us Finns... The Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) instead was nice as it's rare here in Valkeakoski, where I live. At Aristelaht bay we saw something that I never had seen before: a flock of 29 Common Snipes (Gallinago gallinago), feeding in open beach. Usually they are hiding in grassy wetlands, but in Aristelaht they were acting like some sandpipers. Very strange behavior from Common Snipes, IMO.
Soon after that a small, long tailed bird jumped to the air from the road side. We saw it from car only for a few seconds... What the heck was it? Some Pipit ?? Rainer stopped the car, I jumped out and stomped around the area - nothing. But when I got back to car, Rainer smiled and asked: "Do you know what it was?" I got no idea... "The Grey Wagtail!" Rainer had saw the Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) well when I searched it from the wrong area. Cool, one more new species for me from Estonia!
Lahetaguse bird observation tower after we fixed it
From Aristelaht we moved to Lahetaguse, our plan was to fix the hand rail of the bird observation tower which had collapsed. The saw was no needed, but the hammer and nails were essential. About 15 minutes and the tower was fine again. From the tower we saw for example 5 White-tailed Eagles (Haliaetus albicilla), lot's of waterfowls, migrating Little Gulls (Hydrocoloeus minutus), etc. When leaving the place, we saw also a Middle Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos medius), first time in Saaremaa.
Part of large flock of Porchards in Väike Väin
Next a lunch at Kuressaare, pancakes, and then towards north, back to waterfowl paradise of VäikeVäin. Oh my... what a place again! 6800 Tufted Ducks (Aythya fuligula), 5400 Goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula), 1800 Porchards (Aythya ferina), 150 Smews (Mergus albellus), 6000 Mallards(Anas platyrhynchos), 1750 Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus) etc. Totally about 25 000 waterfowls !!! In addition to those, just for example 90 migrating Rooks (Corvus frugilegus), sounds of Bearded Reedling (Panurus biarmicus) and Western Marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus).
Day 3. Nice start of the day at Lõmala: Second Peregrine (Falco peregrinus) of the trip, hunting on the shore. I love that bird... Our first target today was Undva Nina cape in western Saaremaa. Strong southerly wind, 15 m/s in gusts, made sea watching challenging. In spite of the wind, migration was pretty good: about 45 Razorbills (Alca torda) plus 5 unidentified Razorbills / Common Guillemots, 2 Black Guillemots (Cepphus grylle), ca 200 Common Eiders (Somateria mollissima), 1 juvenile unidentified Skua (Stercorarius sp.), Crossbills, Tits, Pipits etc.
Gulls, mainly Common (aka Mew) Gulls in Undva. 1 Mediterranean Gull somewhere in the middle.
Sedentary birds were also interesting. We knew that few days earlier Juha Sjöholm and Jände Nordblad had found two Mediterranean Gulls (Larus melanocephalus) from here. So we had to check each and every gull in sight... and there were about 1300 gulls, changing places all the time. Finally we found one 1st calendar year Mediterranean Gull, it was the first in Estonia for both of us! After stopping the migration watching, we concentrated in sedentary waterfowls on the bay on south side of Undva Nina. At first we found just Long-tailed Ducks (Clangula hyemalis), Velvet Scoters (Melanitta fusca), Eurasian Teals (Anas crecca) etc. common species, but finally Rainer saw in the mouth of the bay 8 Steller's Eiders (Polysticta stelleri) ! But what the heck, I could not see them with my Zeiss Diascope 65 T*FL 15-45X !!! I just saw that there was something... But Rainer's new Swarovski ATX 30-70x95 saved my day! I must get the same scope! Time to start saving money... So, the morning was really good, but in the afternoon we made a wrong decision. Somehow we thought that that the wind was from SW (as promised in the weather forecast) and in that case the bays in NE side of Saaremaa would be full of birds. So we drove to Kahtla-Kübassaare LKA, and only there we noticed that the wind was directly from south and most of the birds had moved to some better wind-protected locations... Only one new species for the trip: Garganey (Anas querquedula) in Saareküla harbor.
But now it was time to catch the ferry back to mainland. Short stop in Väike Väin saved the evening, as we found a nice flock of 11 Great White Herons (Egretta alba).
Delicious bread of M/S Muhumaa
Hint: in the cafe of ferry (at least in M/S Muhumaa), get yourself a dark bread with herring, leek and egg. It's simply delicious!
Evening came fast, and it was already totally dark when we arrived to our hotel in Haapsalu. There we met a group of birders from UK, they had had a very nice day too.
Day 4.
Great Cormorants in front of the Baltic Hotel Promenaadi in Haapsalu
Big surprise right in the morning... Our hotel, the Baltic Hotel Promenaadi, is a perfect place for birders!!! The hotel is in the shore of Tagalaht bay, which was full of birds!!! Biggest flock of Gadwalls (Anas strepera) that I've ever seen, ca 4100 birds! Wow! And many others, like ca 2100 Eurasian Wigeons (Anas penelope), ca 750 Coots (Fulica atra), 300 Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) etc. During breakfast, take a window table and don't forget your bins to your hotel room ;) And when we left, Black Redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) was singing somewhere nearby. Nice! This hotel will be our number one choice from now in Haapsalu.
Our first target today was Pöösaspea cape in Noarootsi (New Sweden) area. While driving to north from Haapsalu, we saw first a late Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) in Uuemõisa and bit later a huge flock, some 4000 Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis) on the roadside. The flock took off and suddenly the sky was filled with geese and the noise was amazing, as you can see and hear from my YouTube video above.
Long-tailed Ducks on migration in Pöösaspea. I'd prefer to use former name Oldsquaw of these beautiful ducks.
In Pöösaspea the migration was modest, we spent there about an hour and half and saw for example ca 3000 Long-tailed Ducks (Clangula hyemalis), 2000 Common Eiders (Somateria mollissima), ca 50 Black-throated Loons (Gavia arctica), 60 Red-throated Loons (Gavia stellata) plus 50 unidentified loons on migration. Lot's of sedentary birds as well, like 500 Goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula), 1000 Common Eiders etc. The cape was crowded with birders, in addition to us there were the same group of British birders that we met in hotel yesterday and one local Estonian birder, who was so busy in counting the migration that we did not dare to interrupt him. If any of you Estonian readers of my blog happen to know who this young guy was, I would be happy know. He probably lives in Spithami as he had arrived to Pöösaspea by bike.
Note! The number of juvenile Long-tailed Ducks was alarming, the ratio between old and juvenile birds was about 95:5 !!! What has happened in their breeding places in Siberia? Was the summer weather bad, or have the foxes spread from south to Arctic tundra?
From Pöösaspea we drove to Haversvi shore, which is located in between of Roosta puhkeküla and Kronnsaar. It's a great place to watch waders, even at this late of autumn. There were still a nice mixed flock of waders left: 33 Dunlins (Calidris alpina), 2 Curlew Sandpipers (Calidris ferruginea), 1 Red Knot (Calidris canutus), 2 Sanderlings (Calidris alba), 3 Common Ringed Plovers (Charadrius hiaticula), 3 European Golden Plovers (Pluvialis apricaria), 12 Ruffs (Philomachus pugnax) and 1 Common Snipe (Gallinago gallinago). Especially the Sanderlings were really cool to see, I had not seen them for years. One of the Dunlins was still in full breeding plumage, which was a bit odd, IMO.
Common Ravens are really common in Estonia
Next a short visit to Leidissoo LKA, just to see how it was. Not much birds this time of year, just 6 Marsh Tits (Poecile palustris), Hazel Hen (Tetrastes bonasia), Eurasian Treecreeper (Certhia familiaris) and Common Ravens (Corvus corax). Oh, and tens or hundreds of annoying Deer Flies. The British group had saw there a Ural Owl (Strix uralensis) though. Our best observation was a poop pile of Brown Bear (Ursus arctos). ;)
Time was running fast and we decided to get back to Haapsalu area to check the nearby bays. The first target was the western observation tower of Tahu Laht (in Google maps "Haapsalu bay"). We could not have chosen a better place... the bay was filled with birds! Ca 10 000 Eurasian Wigeons (Anas penelope), 7000 Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis), 1500 Great White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons), 100 Tundra Bean Geese (Anser fabalis rossicus), 4 Greylag Geese (Anser anser), 1200 Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus), 1200 Mute Swans (Cygnus olor), 100 Whooper Swans (Cygnus cygnus), 68 Great White Egrets (Egretta alba), 250 Northen Lapwings (Vanellus vanellus), 9 White-tailed Eagles (Haliaetus albicilla), migrating 1st year Pallid Harrier(Circus macrourus), first for us in Estonia, White-backed Woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos) and many, many more.
33 Great White Egrets over Saunja bay!
After Tahu, we had still some time left so we headed to Saunja laht eastern observation tower. Saunja laht is basically part of same large area with Tahu laht, they are just separated by large reed beds. Sun was already setting down and thousands of geese took off from Tahu laht and flew past us to fields. Also the Great White Egrets (Egretta alba) took off and flew around the area. The biggest undivided flock of Egrets was 33 birds, the biggest I've ever seen! Totally, in Haapsalu area, we saw 82 Great White Egrets plus yesterday 11 in Väike Väin, i.e. totally 93 Great White Egrets!
From Saunja, back to Tallinn, Helsinki and home...
Finally, some sums: 137 species, 140 000 birds, 38 White-tailed Eagles, 11 Harriers - all 4 species, huge numbers of waterfowls. Getting back to almost empty inland of Finland after this was again a slight birding shock... 😉
Counting backwards from today, 1376 Northern Hawk Owls have been seen in Finland during last 30 days. Here in Valkeakoski, where I live, at least 5 birds are present. So, if you haven't seen or photographed this species yet, now you have a chance!
On 27th of March I noticed that our local Mute Swan has a ring in it's right leg. Naturally I thought that the bird is one of those Mute Swans that local bird ringers Jote Ahola or Markku Alanko had ringed years ago. Still, I wanted to read the ring, just to get sure when it was ringed.
So, last Tuesday I was feeding swans with my son Roni in Putaanvirta, in centre of Valkeakoski. There were both Whooper Swans and one Mute Swan, which was pretty tame. It climbed on the pier, just in front of of us, only 2 metres away, so I was able to take good photos of the ring.
But only several days later I took a better look at my photos and to my surprise I noticed that the ring is not Finnish, but a Danish ring! Wow!
I sent the data of my record with enclosed photo of the ring to the Natural History Museum of Denmark. And yesterday I received the reply. The Mute Swan was ringed on 21st of March 2010 in Munkholmbroen, near Holbæk, Sjælland, Denmark, 895.5 km southwest from Putaanvirta. Now we know where this Mute Swan spends the winters!
The pool plug was opened last night! Night was clear and warm, so the migration started with full power. Lot's of new species arrived during last night and the migration continued till the evening.
The landscape changes now all the time. The heavy rain that we had here yesterday has melted quite a lot of snow and that led to flooding especially in countryside. Today we had a sunny day, but tomorrow we will get more rain and for day after tomorrow, the prediction is a torrential rain! That will create big flood lakes for waterfowl and waders - good for birds and birders, but not so good for farmers.
Taiga Bean Geese in Linnanen
Back to this morning. I did a great trip with Jussi Kallio. The first new birds for this year were a singing European Robin and flock of 10 Redwings, both in Lahinen. Soon after that we stopped in the middle of the fields of Linnanen for one hour. Chaffinches, Skylarks, Snow Buntings and Wood Pigeons were flowing to north, while big numbers of sedentary Northern Lapwings, European Starlings and Skylarks with smaller numbers of Eurasian Cranes, Taiga Bean Geese, Meadow Pipits, Black-headed Gulls, thrushes (including 3 Mistle Thrushes) and some other species were resting and flying around the fields. Eurasian Kestler was the first bird of prey for today, following soon by Northern Goshawk.
Linnanen was a real Eldorado today, as other fields around were still covered with more snow. Still, the Whooper Swans or their sounds were almost everywhere. We saw also many Canada Geese and several Eurasian Cranes. Also lot's of Mallards and Goldeneyes, some Common Teals and Goosanders and about 30 Eurasian Coots. Two Rough-legged Buzzards were flying to north in Konhonvuolle. Nice surprise was also the first Small Tortoishell on the roadside in Metsäkansa.
Later in the afternoon I did another trip with my son Roni. In addition to above we saw two Lesser Black-Backed Gulls and a migrating White-tailed Eagle.
During last 10 days the weather has changed totally as the termic spring (daily mean temperature over 0°C) started two days ago. Warm moist air flowed from Central Europe to Nordic countries, creating rain and fog.
So, no more walking over the hard snow, thaw takes care that hard snow turns back to soft. In fact the snow started melting immediately, and first signs of flooding are already visible. If the rains continue, we will have excellent floods on the fields, where waders and waterfowl have perfect resting places.
Below I'll write day by day what has happened, so you can get an overview how the change from spring winter to real spring happened.
27.3. Almost -15°C during night. First Mute Swan was today in Putaanvirta stream. It is a very tame and hungry individual, with a ring in the leg. The ring itself was a surprise, but I'll write about it later in separate story.
28.3. Cold nights continue, even though the daytime temperature is above zero. I saw the first Merlin today; it flew fast past my car in afternoon in Lotilansalmi.
Bewick's Swan (left) with Whooper Swan
29.3. Nice surprise today in Iso-Vuolle; an adult Bewick's Swan among the flock of Whooper Swans. Bewick's Swan is a small rarity here, so I made a rare bird alert and at least couple of twitchers came to see it. The Bewick's Swan was there still in the morning of 30th but disappeared after that.
The morning of 31st of March was still cold
30.3. - 1.4. The weather was still very cold and during daytime only few hours above 0°C. Some Skylarks, Northern Lapwings, Starlings and other scouts have been seen here by other birders, but personally I got only two new species for this year on 30.3. when Common Buzzard was soaring to north in the Fields of Linnanen and two Linnets were heading to northeast in Iso-Vuolle. I saw also two adult sedentary White-Tailed Eagles in Rauttunselkä.
2.4. Last night was warm, but still too foggy... as the fog prevents most of the birds to migrate. Still something new: Northern Shrike in Kuurila fields. Also, I saw the second Merlin for this spring, in Iso-Vuolle.
Starlings arrived on Sunday
3.4. But on Sunday it started! I didn’t actually do any birding on Sunday as we visited the relatives of my wife, but during drive to Hämeenlinna and back I managed to see a flock of 20 Starlings in the roadside in Hattula and unexpectedly the first Eurasian Oystercatcher on the ice of Rauttunselkä! It felt a bit odd to see the Oystercatcher before Lapwings and Skylarks!
Northern Lapwings and Hooded Crow
4.4. Both Sunday and Monday were too foggy for the big rush. Still, the birds seem to a have huge pressure to get to their breeding sites... When I opened the door in the morning, a flock of 10 Blackbirds flew over our house. No doubt, they had arrived during night. After that I did a nice few hour trip in heavy rain and fog, with lot's of new species for this year; 14+1 Skylarks, a flock of 83 Northern Lapwings, 2 Eurasian Wigeons, 18 Eurasian Coots, 17 Black-headed Gulls, 6 Common Gulls (aka Mew Gulls) and 2 Great Crested Grebes. In addition those also 12 Snow Buntings were nice!
The fog may fade away for tomorrow, so the big rush may start...
Fortunately the sun warmed the air fast, and soon the visibility was ok. The first visitors had arrived right after 9 a.m. and the chairman of the Lokkisaari organization started to arrange boats for them, to get to the island. In photo below, two boats of birders are approaching the Lokkisaari.
