Black Scoter
On the 9th of May I had to go twitching again when a Black Scoter had been found in Keuruu Isohiekka Keurusselkä. I had to stay at work for a couple of hours but then I managed to leave early enough.
It was a long drive and about at 6 p.m. I finally parked to Isohiekka. It was still some hundreds of meters walk to the shore where plenty of twitchers were already.
The bird had once been flushed by a boat and soon after that it had stayed with a flock of 28 Common Scoters in very bad light against the sun. So the bird hadn’t been possible to identify for more than an hour.
The flock was swimming slowly to a better light and once I managed to find a bird that shape looked perfect for Black Scoter but then a boat came again and flushed the flock back to much worse light.
The flock kept on swimming back again and towards one small island and finally I managed to see the bird better and the coloration of the bill. The shape was exactly what I had seen earlier.
The flock continued behind the island and finally they were coming from the other side of the island to good light but once again a boat came and flushed them to the worst possible light again!
After more than 3 hours the sun started to set and then the visibility got much better but of course there wasn’t much light anymore. Anyway the bird was again possible to see time to time but the flock was very active and it always disappeared behind the other scoters.
Finally I decided to start a long way back home and I was able to go to sleep at 2:30 a.m. But I had got 2 WP-ticks in 3 days which I had thought never happen again in Finland.
J.A.