Beginning of arctic migration and a lifer
On the 13th of May in my lunch-hour I saw a flock of 150 Yellow Wagtails, a White-tailed Eagle and 5 Swifts in Siikalahti. After my work we left birding to Saari area where we checked all the traditional places Rautalahti, Akanvaar Tetrisuo, Pohjasuo, Pohjanranta, Jyrkilä, Tarassii and Kanavalampi. The best birds were 2 Ortolan Buntings and a Rook in Tetrisuo, a flock of 2000 Barnacle Geese, a Brent Goose, 3 Black-tailed Godwit, 24 Spotted Redshanks and a Grey Heron in Pohjanranta and 250 Wood Sandpipers in Kanavalampi.
On the next day we saw 2 Arctic Terns with 115 Common Terns in Kirkkoselkä. It was only my 2nd observation of the species in Parikkala! In Siikalahti I saw a Canada Goose that seems to be nesting, a White-backed Woodpecker and heard 2 singing Blackcaps.
In the afternoon I made almost similar trip to Saari than on previous day with Harri Partanen and “rolle” Mortensen. The north-eastern wind seemed to have stopped the migration and most of the same birds were seen again. New birds were a younger White-tailed Eagle and 3 male hen Harriers. There were now 2500 Barnacle Geese in Pohjanranta
In the evening we went to check the size of the Ural Owl nestlings and surprisingly the mom owl was in the nest-box so we managed to check the ring and it was the same bird than already 5 years.
The 3 nestling were still too small to be ringed. Then we continued to ring Tengmalm’s Owl nestling and surprisingly all 5 nestling were still alive. The mom Tengmalm’s Owl was watching from the tree while we ringed the youngsters. Harri and “Rolle” really enjoyed the owl-experience!
Harri sended nice picture of ringing. This Tengmalm’s Owl nestling is just getting aluminium ring on its furry feet.
On the 15th of May I went to Siikalahti already at 4:30 a.m. Again a crazy Common Tern had incubated to the middle of the parking place. So like last year we have to try to move slowly the eggs to the man made nest outside the parking place. Sedge Warblers were singing and also a Bluethroat was singing quietly. At 5 a.m. I walked to the main bird-tower and started to count migration. Soon flocks of geese started to migrate and in the beginning they were mostly grey geese (Bean and White-fronted Geese) but later they were mainly Barnacle Geese. Only other better migrants were a Black-tailed Godwit, a Whimbrel, a Honey Buzzard and on possible female Pallid Harrier which was just too far to positively identify. I counted the geese until 1 p.m. when there was no more flocks coming and altogether I saw 10685 geese.
While I was driving to home I got a message that a Black-eared Wheatear had been found in Siuntio. It was one of the species that I had always wanted to see In Finland so I decided to give a try even though it was 390 km to Siuntio Myrans. I picked up Pekka Punnonen in Lappeenranta and after some hours driving we finally found to Myrans pools. After a kilometre walking we found also the twitchers that had the bird almost in front of them. It was a nice female.
We watched this Black-eared Wheatear for some time and then decided to start our long way back home. WM ice-hockey final Finland-Sweden started when we had still 100 km to Lappeenranta, but I still managed to get to home to see the 3rd period when Finland made 5 goals and won WM-gold 6-1! What an amazing day!
J.A.