Arctica-weekend
The 16th of May was a big Barnacle Goose migration day. I was at work, but early in the morning and during my lunch hour I manged to see more than 10000 of them, but I missed about 20000 more. But almost nothing else was migrating even though the weather was promising – only a flock of 6 Scaups and a Redshank were seen.
After my work I left towards south. I stopped again in Imatra Sotkulampi where I still found one Dotterel. In Konnunsuo the flood had mostly dried so I didn’t find anything else than 5000 Barnacle Geese.
Then I drove straight to Virolahti where I managed to get a place where to stay over the weekend in a cottage that Olli-Pekka Pietiläinen had luckily managed to rent. The place of that cottage was perfect, Hurppu, but the cottage wasn’t. Nobody had used it almost at all for about 10 years. Anyway soon we were watching evening migration on the rocky shore. A long-stayed King Eider was seen immediately and the rest of the evening we saw some 3000 arctic ducks, mostly Common Scoters. Other birds were some thousands of Barnacale Geese, a couple of Brent Geese flocks and an Arctic Skua.
On the 17th day we started at 4:30 a.m. and before the mid-day we had counted more than 30000 Barnacle Geese. But otherwise it was quiet: only 500 Brent Geese and some hundreds of divers, almost all Black-throated. During the day we went to say hello to other birders in Hurppu and so we got invited to join the rest of the cottagers to even a better place on the spit. While chatting there we saw the same King Eider trying to make a female Eider crush with him and O-P found a flock of 7 Red-necked Phalaropes from the calm sea.
In the evening we were with the rest of Hurppu cottagers and we counted now 22500 Long-tailed Ducks and 10200 Common Scoters. Other birds seen were a couple of Gadwalls, 4 Red-necked Grebes, a Slavonian grebe and 2 Arctic Skuas.
On the 18th of May the weather was too good. During the day we stripped several layers off and in the end we were wearing t-shirts. The migration was quiet, but the species were very different: 447 Scaups and 169 Velvet Scoters were counted. I also saw briefly a Velvet Scoter with more colorful bill but it was just too brief. 2500 Barnacle, 274 Brent and 5 White-fronted Geese and 300 divers were counted. During the morning a Red-breasted Flycatcher and an Icterine Warbler were heard singing and other goodies were the same King Eider, a Garganey, 2 Slavonian Grebes and 2 Gold Finches.
During the day I drove back to Parikkala. On the way I stopped in Lintulahti which was very quiet; only many other birders, in Miehikkälä where I saw a Black-tailed Godwit and in Ylämaa Väkevänjärvi where I saw a Grey-headed Woodpecker and heard an Icterine Warbler. But then it started to rain so I continued home.
J.A.