Beginning of July birding
On the 1st of July we still met with Pirkka and his family in Siikalahti but in very windy weather we didn’t see anything special. On the 2nd of July we went to ring 2 nestlings of Nightjar. While walking towards the nest we flushed a female Capercaillie.
On the 3rd of July I went to check that a Black Kite was still on the top of the tree next to its nest. In the evening we went to search for Short-eared Owl chicks and we found 3 of them but they were already flying. We managed to get pretty good pictures of one bird. There were also Long-eared Owl fledglings nearby but they were too shy. On the 4th day I visited cemetery and saw a Grey-headed Woodpecker, a young Wryneck looking out from the nest-hole and heard a Golden Oriole and an Icterine Warbler. In Kukonkanta we heard a Common Reed Warbler and saw a family of Little Ringed Plovers – two young birds were flying well already.
On the 5th day we went to Kesusmaa areas where we managed to make this Atlas-square better. In cemetery the Wrynecks were out from their nest and they seemed to be everywhere. We also heard 2 Golden Orioles. In the evening I went to a proper night-trip to Saari with Arttu Valonen. The trip started well when we found 2 fledlings of Great Grey Owl! But then next 5 hours we were just counting Corn Crakes (48), Long-eared Owls (1 ad+11 juv) and Blyth’s Reed Warblers (7).
When the sun was rising Arttu dropped me to Papinlahti where Hanna had already put up the mist-nets at 3:30 a.m. Right away we had a feeling that there will be lots of birds and for once we were right. On the first two rounds we got plenty of both Great and Blue Tits but then surprisingly the next round was empty. But luckily then the rush continued and on one round we got more than 30 birds. After all we got a Robin, a Redwing, a Song Thrush, a Blyth’s Reed Warbler, a Lesser Whitethroat, 14+1c Common Whitethroats, 3 Willow Warblers, a Pied Flycatcher, 18+1c Blue and 54 Great Tits, a Bullfinch, a Yellowhammer and a Reed Bunting. So altogether we had got 98r+2c = 100 birds!
During the day we went to twitch a Common Quail in Koitsanlahti Syrjärinne and then went to check that everything was OK with Grey Wagtails in Kokkolanjoki – but we found only 1 male and then saw one female-type bird very briefly in flight. Young birds had probably already spread around the river. Once we were back at home Hanna found a tiny young Common Sandpiper from our garden.
On the 7th day I saw a Black Kite and a Great Egret on my lunch-hour and in the afternoon we did a short field-trip and saw Short- and Long-eared Owls, a Hen Harrier, Stock Doves and so on. Then I still saw a flock of 60 migrating Common Scoters in our garden.
On our 25th anniversary it was a storm and very rainy. After my work we went to eat to Iloinen Pässi and then decided to visit Saar Pohjanranta if the storm had dropped any waders there. Luckily we found 8 Dunlins and a Little Stint which were my 200th and 201st Parikkala year-ticks. I have got every year since 2013 more than 200 species in Parikkala.
On the 9th of July we did the second duckling-count in Siikalahti. There were already lots of Mallards, 348 birds and of course mainly adult males but also 158 Wigeons. It was nice to find 2 families of Common Pochards too. But gulls, terns and grebes had really had bad summer as storms and crows had destroyed almost all their nests. We also saw 4 Great Egrets, a Grey Heron, a Black Woodpecker, once again a Black Kite and I heard a Nuthatch.
Next couple of days I didn’t see anything special but on the 12th of July we did SSP-ringing again. We caught a Common Snipe, a Robin, a Song Thrush, a Blyth’s Reed Warbler, a Lesser Whitethroat, 17+1c Common Whitethroats, 4+1c Willow Warbler, a surprise female Red-breasted Flycatcher, 2 Pied Flycatchers, a Great Tit, finally out first Willow Tit in this place, a Greenfinch, 2 Common Rosefinches, a Yellowhammer and 2+2c Reed Buntings. We also heard a Black Woodpecker, a Golden Oriole and a few Common Crossbills and I saw 3 Cormorants.
After SSP we did a quick butterfly-trip and managed to find 5 Poplar Admirals and 4 White Admirals. It was finally warm, even very hot day but anyway we still went to build a new ringing place to Kukonkanta. A huge ditch had been made to our old place so we had to change to a new place there.
J.A.