Long twitching trip
On Friday the 31st of May after work I started driving towards Luoto, where a Bonelli’s Warbler had been singing for almost a week already. It was a long drive but I didn’t stop at all on the way and finally parked to Luoto Eugmo Fränsviken. Willow Warblers and a Lesser Whitethroat were singing all the time but I had to wait for some time before I finally heard the Bonelli’s Warbler. I took lots of sound-recording and also managed to get some pretty good pictures of this bird. It was also calling actively so it was good to record the calls too.
I met a local birder at Bonelli’s Warbler place and he told me that a Dark Junco that had been in Luoto a couple of weeks earlier had probably been recorded in Kokkola a couple of days earlier. Merlin App had made the identification. And then there was also a possible record this morning but nobody knew where it had been made.
It was already late evening when I drove to Kokkola and I was driving around the place where the Junco sound-recording had been made. I spent a couple of hours there but then I decided to drive Harrbåda where I tried to sleep a little but without success. When the sun was rising, I drove back to Luoto to tick the Bonelli’s Warbler as a June-tick.
Then I still drove back to Kokkola and searched for Junco for an hour before I drove back towards Harrbåda. First I visited Elba bird-tower and saw a couple of Shelducks. Then I walked along a path to Rummelö bird-tower which was closed because of construction work, but anyway I walked until the tower. A Water Rail was calling on the way and close to the tower I saw a Ural Owl. From the tower I saw a couple of Broad-billed Sandpipers.
Then I drove to the end of the road to Harrbåda and planned to start to sleep. I had already been awake for 24 hours and driven hundreds of kilometers so I as very tired, but anyway I decided to check Harrbåda first. The shore where the birds were was in very bad light but I managed to identify some Common and Lesser Ringed Plovers and then I found a nice Red Knot. I though I had checked all the birds many times already when I noticed a sandpiper that was right back on the shore and in the worst light. I immediately thought it was a Pectoral Sandpiper. But it was all the time behind some rocks so I couldn’t really see it well. But I managed to see that it had yellow legs and very dark throat. I was wondering why it didn’t have a distinct V on its back. I decided to move my scope if there was any other bird nearby for a size-comparisation and soon found a couple of Common Ringed Plovers. I then turned my scope back towards the sandpiper but it was gone! I searched for some time but couldn’t relocate it. So I couldn’t be sure if it had been a Pectoral Sandpiper or a strange, maybe dirty Temminck’s Stint.
There were other birders coming to the shore so I decided to go to sleep. Also my friends visited this place later and they didn’t see any small waders there. But later in the evening a Pectoral Sandpiper was found right on the same spot…
When I woke up I started driving back towards South-East. On the way I stopped in Evijärvi Särkijärvi where I photographed breeding Black Terns in a very hot weather! After all most of the pictures were pretty bad because of the haze.
I still had a long drive back to Parikkala but finally I was at home. It had been a long but successful twitching trip.
J.A.