August 2006
August – Back to normal life
After a holiday trip, the normal life felt pretty boring. I was working of course but all the free time I was birding. Actually I was birding at least a couple of hours every day in August. But almost nothing better was found – the same White-tailed Eagle had arrived to stay in Siikalahti. This was the third autumn for it and now it was already in adult plumage. It was also cleverer now, it was stealing the fish from Ospreys and Marsh Harriers but it was also eating fish and young Coots. Many Grey Herons had arrived also to stay in Siikalahti.
Like always, not many waders were seen in Siikalahti: Wood Sandpipers, Ruffs and some other common ones and one young Lesser Ringed Plover.
This autumn I had only 8 duck counts to do. Already the first round was productive: 473 Coots, 203 Mallards, 192 Teals, 87 Wigeons and still 6 Slavonian Grebes.
On the 12th of August we went to explore the forests of Haukmäki to Punkaharju, but only a Capercaillie and a Goshawk were seen. A couple of days earlier Hanna had seen several Capercaillies.
On the next morning I did the second duck count. Now there were more Grey Herons than I had ever seen – 22 birds. Now the most common duck was a Teal, 248 birds, 42 Shovelers were also a good number. The best observation of the day was a Collared Dove that I found from the flock of 200 Wood Pigeons, it was a Siikalahti tick for me!
On the 15th day a Bittern was still flying in Siikalahti and on 19th day I still found a young Thrush Nightingale. On the 20th day we had a different kind of bird trip with Matti Lötjänen. We went to do birding to a place in Parikkala we had never been before. In Koukkuinmaa we found a young Red-breasted Flycatcher, in Koukkuinnurmet we saw a flock of 5 young Common Rosefinches. From the view-tower in Kumpu we saw several Honey Buzzards, Common Buzzards, Ospreys, Sparrowhawks and still 2 Curlews and in Papinniemi and Hevoskallio we had a good look to big Lake Pyhäjärvi where Red-necked Grebes and Lesser Black-backed Gulls were found.
On the 23rd day I did the 3rd duck counts and even 609 Mallards were count. Aldo 3 Gadwalls were nice to see because of these were the youngsters of the first ever proved breeding in Siikalahti. Also 276 Teals, 273 Wigeons, 17 Shovelers, 7 Pintails, 10 Pochards, 1 Slavonian Grebe and 478 Coots were seen.
On the 26th day we had a bird eally in former Saari and Uukuniemi area. We started at six a.m. and continued 12 hours. Potu (Miika Suojarinne) was also in my team because Hanna was in Nederland in Dutch Bird Fair. In the beginning it was very foggy so our plan to watch to the lakes was not good. So nothing good was found from the lakes and our best observations were a couple of Grey Herons, a Whitethroat and a couple of Golden Plovers. In Akonpohja we found a couple of Lesser Whitethroats, a Sedge Warbler and some Teals. All the ducks were difficult in this area because of all the lakes are free for hunting. From Lahdenpohja we found some Wigeons. In Kirjavalansalo we saw a Black Woodpecker and in Pohjasuo we saw a Red-throated Pipit. In Kanavalampi a Swift, an Osprey and a Marsh Harrier were seen. Next species were a Chiffchaff, a Crested Tit, a White-backed Woodpecker and a Redpoll. Then we drove to Uukuniemi Hevoskallio, where we found some Common Terns, a Black-headed Gull, Red-necked Grebes and 2 Red-throated Divers. Also Black-throated Divers and Lesser Black-backed Gulls were seen, but those we had seen already. From Kumpu tower we met Harry’s team but only Harry climbed up to the tower while Jarno Walle and Jari Kiljunen continued to Pyhäjärvi – on this rally it was ok to do this. a Hen Harrier and a Goshawk were seen like some other common raptors too. Then we continued to Lammintaus where the only new species was a Wheatear.
Our 77 species wasn’t very much, the winners Jussi Valonen and Ari Parviainen had found 91 species! Altogether 5 teams had found 114 species but nothing really interesting.
On the 28th day I was again in Siikalahti (as almost in every day) and finally it started to rain! The rain dropped also some migrating waders down to the bay and even though it was raining really hard I managed to see 18 Ruffs, 2 Temminck’s Tints, 2 Spotted Redshanks and 2 young Curlew Sandpipers – the first ones for me for 3 years.