During Geese migration peak
The numbers of geese started to get bigger in Parikkala. On the 23rd of September there was a flock of 500 Barnacle Geese in Särkisalmi and on the 24th day I counted 4000 Barnacle Geese in Vartialahti. On the 25th day I went to Siikalahti on my lunch-hour and the migration was really going on! In a less than an hour I saw 2500 Barnacle and a flock of 2000 Brent Geese. And there were many other birds migrating too like 8 Red-throated Divers, 14 Rough-legged Buzzards, Wigeons, Pintails, Red-brested Mergansers and so on. In the afternoon agfter work I left birding with “Rolle” Mortensen. We started from Siikalahti and in a less than an hour again we saw 3000 Barnacle Geese, 3000 Brent Geese, a White-tailed Eagle and 2 Peregrine Falcons. Most of the geese were migrating towards west and a little bit too north so we decided to move to Saari.
In Akanvaara Tetrisuo we found 4500 Barnacle geese and 500 of them were migrating. A White-taile Eagle was also seen. Next local geese we found in Jyrkilä where some 4000 geese were feeding on a field. I started to check them carefully and found the same, or at least similar minima Cackling Goose that I had twitched in Kitee some days earlier. Rolle managed to see it too but then the flock flushed for no reason and we could see that there had been even more birds on the lake. We counted 9000 geese on flight. We also saw 290 Cranes and a Hen Harrier there.
Next we continued to Kuposenmäki to see if the geese came to overnight to Lake Pien Rautjärvi. There were already thousands of geese on the fields but soon also birds from Jyrkilä and maybe some other fields started to arrive too. Altogether we saw about 20 000 Barnacle Geese! When it started to come too dark we left to home.
On the 26th of September I visited Siikalahti again on my lunch-hour. The migration was still going on. Geese had been migrating whole night. 1500 local and 1100 migrating Barnacle Geese were counted. Cranes were migrating too and I saw 134 of them in less than an hour. After a long day at work I still drove to Saari Kuposenmäki where at least 12 000 Barnacle Geese came to the lake again.
On the 27th of September the migration was almost stopped because of the wind had changed. In Kullinsuo I found 2500 Barnacle Geese and 2 Bewick’s Swans and in Vartialahti there wasa flock of 1500 Barnacle Geese. After my work I drove to Saari again where I counted 2500 Barnacle Geese in Akanvaara Tetrisuo, 4000 in Pohjasuo, 8000 in Jyrkilä and 6000 in Kuposenmäki. Some of the birds in Kuposenmäki were same than I had seen already in Jyrkilä. Other nice birds were 2 Great Grey Shrikes in Akanvaara Tetrisuo, 30 Bewick’s Swans in Pohjasuo and a Grey Heron in Kuposenmäki. I saw still only some tens of Bean and White-fronted Geese so at least most of White-fronted Geese were still coming.
On the 30th of September once I had just driven from Hailuoto and I was unpacking my car I saw a flock of 290 White-fronted Geese migrating over me. On the next day, 1st of October, I visited Siikalahti and there were 200 Bean Geese, 60 White-fronted Geese, 600 Barnacle Geese, 325 Whooper Swans and 6 Bewick’s Swans. I also saw again the same Nutcracker and a Chifffchaff was calling next to my working place.
J.A.