July 2004
July – Bad weather but some birding anyway
July was quite awful! Weather was really bad, it was raining almost all the time, but it was OK for me. I was working in Health Centre, so at least I could manage inside, it wasn’t too hot.
I hadn’t enough energy to do birding a lot. After the 4,5 months trip and 2,5 months working with birds, it was good to relax little bit. So I birded only if I knew I can get some results. Timo Kauppinen told me a nesting place of Nightjar, so I tried couple of times to get pictures of this amazing bird. The nest was in pretty difficult place, but I managed to get some kind of pictures. Biggest problem was that the nest was too close to that place where it was visible.
During one night we birded in Saari area with Antti. We tried to find birds for the Saari bird rally. Anyway we stopped couple of times also in Parikkala while driving to Saari. At Rautalahti we heard 2 Spotted Crakes and River Warbler. Next we decided to go to Koukkuinnurmet where I had been only ones before. Before we reached the fields, I said to Antti, that: “There is just that kind of fields that we could hear a Quail”. When we reached the fields we heard after couple of seconds listening this rare bird!
We birded a couple of hours in Saari, but we couldn’t find anything special. Just some Corn Crakes and Blyth’s Reed Warblers and one Marsh Warbler. On yhe way back we visited Parikkala Tyrjänkoski, where we heard a Greenish Warbler singing. In Siikalahti we still saw a Black Tern flying. We were little bit disappointed because the Rally would be in Saari not in Parikkala.
I visited the Nightjars nest once again, now with Antti. We were walking towards the nest when a Wiper-snake and something else escaped just under my foot. The another small thing was a chicken of Hazel Hen. Actually there were plenty of chickens and also mother Hazel Hen running just in front of us. At least I managed to get pictures of one small chicken.
Antti did couple of times birding in Saari, but I wasn’t able to join him more than ones. On the 7th of July, only 2 days before the rally, we tried to find good forests from Saari. We had no idea where we could find forest birds, so we were really in hurry. I had found out by checking maps that near Römppee might be some kind of forests. So we went to check these places. We managed to find 2 Wrens, Wood Warblers, Chiffchaffs, Dunnocks, Goldcrests, Crested Tits and Hazel Hen, so we were more than happy.
On the 9th of July the rally begun at 10 p.m. There was even 6 teams joining the rally, and we were a team with Hanna. We decided to start from Leitvaaranmäki where was a good view to Lake Simpele. Also Antti and Matti started there, so we had interesting one hour there, because we managed to see couple of species that another team didn’t. Anyway we couldn’t find anything better than Red-necked Grebe, Teal and Black-throated Diver before it came too dark.
At 11 p.m. we were driving along small forest roads at Kirjavala, but we found only some Nightjars. At Pitkänpohjankangas we weren’t the only team that tried to hear a calling Ural Owl which had been calling there whole summer, but we were the only team that heard it! So when Jari Kontiokorpi called us that their team had found a displaying Great Snipe we were free to go there to twitch this rarity. The bird was just on the route that we had planned to continue, so after listening it we continued to Kanavalampi where we heard some Spotted Crakes and one Water Rail.
At Mikkolanniemi we heard first Corn Crakes and Grasshopper Warblers which were both common also later. We also heard Thrush Nightingale, Blyth’s Reed Warbler and Marsh Warbler which we had prepared. Also Long-eared Owl was heard. Rest of the night we just tried to find something, mostly River Warbler, but we couldn’t find any new species.
The morning started in Naattikumpu where we heard Redstart, Coal Tit and Chiffchaff. Next we continued to Römppee where we heard easily all the species we had found couple of days ago: Dunnock, Goldcrest, Crested Tit and Wren were heard in Heinävaara like a big surprise Nutcracker too! When we found a family of Grey-headed Woodpeckers, our rally was going really well!
In Pohjansuo we made a quickly stop and we found Meadow Pipits and an Ortolan Bunting, so we didn’t have to go to Tetrisuo at all because of these species.
Next we started to check lakes. Lahdenpohja wasn’t very good, but Akonpohja offered good species like Grey Heron, Reed Warbler, Blackcaps,River Warbler and Goldfinches. From the pine forest we found easily Mistle Trush but also Red-backed Shrike, from Pohjanranta we found Lesser White-throat and from Naattikumpu Wood Warbler and Black Woodpecker. In Kanavalampi there was still an Icterine Warbler on its territory. In Pien Rautjärvi Lake we saw a flock of Ruffs and another Grey Heron. In Tarassiinlahti was an Osprey and Honey Buzzard but also a flock of Greenshanks and a Shoveler were seen.
The end was close, so we decided to go again to Leitvaaranmäki. While driving there, we accidently stopped to one really small lake, where surprisingly was a Slavonian Grebe. Leitvaaranmäki still offered us new species: Little Gull and Sparrowhawk. We still tried to find Hazel Hens but we had no luck.
The rally results were solved out in Mikkolanniemi where six teams of tired birders were telling their results in traditional way. Even thought couple of teams had prepared the rally much more than us, we won the rally pretty clearly. We had found altogether 113 bird species in 14 hours.
13th of July our friends found a Great Spotted Eagle from Siikalahti. I escaped from my work to twitch this beautiful eagle. The eagle was sitting for one week in same spruces in South-Western part of bay before it continued to West. Great Spotted Eagle is so rare species in July that several friends from Southern Finland came to twitch it as a month tick.
16th of July I went by train to Kirkkonummi to my parents because I had good possibilities to twitch several lifers during the weekend. In same evening I already managed to twitch a Long-legged Buzzard which had stayed for one week in Espoo Ämmässuo. It was the first twitchable ever in Finland. During the night I twitched Lanceolated Warbler from Tuusula Seitteli as a year tick. During the early morning I drove with Jari Nummelin and Mika I Koskinen to Tampere Tarastejärvi where we met Visa Rauste and tried to find some interesting gulls. We had a possibility to both Caspian Gull and Yellow-legged Gull. We managed to find almost directly 2nd year Caspian Gull but even if I stayed with Visa on the rubbish tip for whole day we couldn’t find the Yellow-legged Gull. It was good I had Visa with me because there were far too many gulls for me, and they all weren’t easy at all! More than 20 Heuglin’s Gulls in different ages and plumages, thousands and thousands of Herring Gulls, coupe of Great Black-backed Gulls and so on. And all they were changing places all the time especially when a Goshawk was passing by.
The best bird we found was not the Caspian Gull, because at least a leucistic adult Herring Gull was far more interesting looking! It was also rarer, even though not countable as a lifer.
During the evening I tried for 5 hours to see a Mediterranian Gull in Ylöjärvi, but it didn’t come to its favourite small island. I was really tired and bored when I drove back to Kirkkonummi. In the morning I was still too tired to go to Hanko as I had planned. And of course there were Sandwiched Terns seen.
In the end of moth we had the traditional “Finnish darts” championships of Eastern birders. This time we weren’t the last ones! We also had family parties in Ristiina and after that my parents and both brothers with their families stayed several days in Parikkala. With Pirkka we managed to do also birding in Siikalahti, but we couldn’t find anything special. I was already in hurry to work when we noticed there was a family of Cranes in one field. I said to Pirkka: “Do you think those young bird can fly?” and Pirkka answered: ”I have rings with me!”. I didn’t need more and soon I had caught another of the young birds from the wet field. Pirkka was waiting for me near the place where another bird had disappeared, and soon we found the bird hiding on the bottom of a ditch. So we managed to ring all the young Cranes of Siikalahti!