July 2006
July and holiday
When the month changed, I was meeting my old friends in Oulu. We also had a meeting with my old classmates which some of them I hadn’t met for more than 15 years! On the other hand some of them are still my best friends. The menu was mostly alcoholic, but anyway I managed to make some bird observations because we were in one of the best birding places in Oulu in Hietasaari. Hawfinches were calling on the trees and we even visited the bird tower with Juha Heimovirta. So I managed to get Little Tern and Shelduck as a year tick but we also met a group of Swedish birders which were the same we had met in Krankesjön, Southern Sweden, at Eastern. So I paid my depth and told them some birds around Oulu – they had told us a Firecrest then. At night the parties were still on while Long-eared Owl youngsters were calling their parents for food.
On the 2nd of July I was just starting to drive back home when Antti Pesola and Dani Burgas informed me that they had found a couple of Red-footed Falcons from Liminka Hirvineva. So I decided to visit the place to see some more friends and of course some birds too. Antti, Dani and even 3 Red-footed Falcons were still there and we also saw a female Pallid Harrier and some other raptors too. It was a great visit in a place I had been doing counts in the past.
The second stop was made in Piippola Kortteinen where I managed to see a Black Tern, even though Antti had afraid there are none.
I drove slowly towards South-East and finally I decided to sleep a little in Pyhäselkä Reijola. So when I woke up I could twitch a Booted Warbler as a year tick. After all I could sleep only 2 hours at home before I had to go to work.
On the 5th day we did the last night singer counts in Saari. Nobody had heard the Lanceolated Warbler in July but it was still singing in Pohjanranta. It had just moves a couple of hundreds of meters. Otherwise birds were mostly quiet: a Grasshopper Warbler, 2 River Warblers, Spotted Crakes, Corn Crakes, a Water Rail and a Nightjar.
During the next weekend I was near Jyväskylä partying again. Of course we saw some birds with Ilkka and Kristjan Niitepöld, but the most important thing was that we really had a great time!
On the 10th day we did a night singer trip with Dani who had came to holiday to Kesälahti. Of course the summer was too late to make a good trip but I think the Lanceolated Warbler was alone enough for Dani. We still heard some Spotted Crakes, Corn Crakes, some fledlings of Long-eared Owl, a Short-eared Owl, a Nightjar, a Golden Oriole, an Icterine Warbler, some Blyth’s Reed Warblers, a couple of Grasshopper Warblers but no River Warblers – they were all silent! We ended our trip while checking everything was still ok with the breeding pair of Barnacle Geese.
On the next day I still visited Siikalahti where were just the same birds than every summer – Grey Herons, Smews, Reed Warblers and all the common breeding birds.
Then it was time to leave to the bird holiday to Georgia and Armenia to watch birds for a couple of weeks (the whole Trip story will come soon, for example 213 species, which 21 were WP-ticks!). (Look at the Gallery too, where you can already find hundreds of pictures from the trip.)