February 2006
The most boring month begins
I started the February at Simpele Korjontie feeding place and managed to see a Marsh Tit before I had to drive back to Parikkala to work. Also a Coal Tit, Black Grouses, a Dipper and a Waxwing were seen.
The only Fieldfare that was still alive was found on 3rd day in Särkisalmi and on the next day we were birding with Matti Lötjönen to Simpele. The Marsh Tit wasn’t seen but a small thrush (probably a Redwing), 8 Hawfinches, a Sparrowhawk and a Blackbird were seen.
On the 5th day I saw a Treecreeper in Siikalahti and then I drove once again to Korjontie to see both the Marsh Tit and Mikko Ala-Kojola who was driving by.
The funniest mammal I saw in February was found in Tyrjä where an Otter was fishing on the river Joensuu.
I also did some birding in Imatra Vuoksi River where I saw a Whooper Swan, a couple of Smews and Cormorants. On the 12th day I was again skiing in the Siberian Jay forests but I couldn’t find them. But a Hazel Hen and a Capercaillie were found! A Black Woodpecker was flying over our house.
To Ahvenanmaa rally
The 24th of February was the day I’d been waiting for a long time. After the midday when I had finished my work we packed our car and started to drive across the country to Turku. We were going to Ahvenanmaa Island to bird rally!
Our first stop was made in Korjontie because we had Markus Keskitalo with us and we wanted to twitch the Marsh Tit. The tit wasn’t seen but 6 Hawfinches and a Tree-toed Woodpecker were seen. Our second stop was by the Vuoksi River in Imatra. The Whooper Swan, Smews and Cormorants were there again but then we found a surprise – an adult Glauscous Gull flew over us!
Our third stop was in Lappeenranta Luukkaansalmi where we twitched a Grey Heron and 3 Teals. It took only a couple of minutes even though some birders had spent several days to see these birds – we were lucky! But then we had to hurry, we had a long way to drive and it was getting late.
Finally we were in Turku harbour at 8.30 p.m. and we were the last car to drive to the ferry! There we found Mikko Ala-Kojola and Antti Pesola who was the other half of our rally-team. Markus was going to another team.
The 4 hours ferry trip went quickly, Finland beat Russia 4-0 in the Olympic semi-final ice hockey.
It was really late when we finally arrived at our hotel in Eckerö Torp. An Eagle Owl was calling outside our window when we started to sleep.
We couldn’t sleep enough because our alarms woke us up before 6 a.m. We had a breakfast and before 7 o’clock we were listening if the Eagle Owl was still calling. Even though there were several teams nobody could hear anything, so we decided to move on quickly. We were the first team to leave the hotel.
After 5 kilometres driving we stopped to listen and there the Eagle Owl was calling! We had started with a really good species!
Our next species were found while driving in Hammarland when the sun started to rise: Mute Swans, Whooper Swans, Goldeneyes, Jackdaws, Hooded Crows, a Black Woodpecker, Blackbirds, Blue Tits and Great Tits. We stopped a couple of times in Jomala Gottby and Common Crossbills, Bullfinches, Willow Tits, Magpies, Ravens, Yellowhammers, Tree Sparrows, House Sparrows, a Fieldfare, Greenfinches and the first of many White-tailed Eagles were seen. A flock of Waxwings was seen by only me and Mikko so it wasn’t countable yet.
Hammarudda was our first real bird place. We had planned to get there to watch “seabirds”, because we had guessed that most of the other teams would start from Eckerö Styrningsudden. And luckily we were there alone with a flock of Redpolls, Goosanders, a couple of Smews, Herring Gulls, Great Black-backed Gulls, Long-tailed Ducks, Black Guillemots, Mallards, Cormorants, Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Gulls, a couple of Common Scoters, a Red-throated Diver, 13 Razorbills and a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. So we had a perfect start! And even though we heard there had been a White-billed Diver in Styrningsudden and 5 teams had seen it, we were happy to be alone.
But then it continued worse. We had an hour without new ticks but finally in Torpfjärden we got a Goldcrest, a Sparrowhawk and a Coal Tit and at Svibyviken we saw the first Tufted Ducks.
At Maarianhamina city we tried to find Collared Doves without luck but we found a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Chaffinch. The fish-harbour had a flock of 1500 Tufted Ducks with some Scaups and a female Steller’s Eider! Also Coots were seen.
Next 2 hours were really bad – we tried to find good feeding places, good forests or anything. Finally we decided we had to move on and we drove to Saltvik Haga fields to find raptors. We had hardly found the fields when I found a Golden Eagle soaring with a White-tailed Eagle far over the fields. And soon we found also a male Goshawk, but no buzzards or a Great Grey Shrike. We were really on a hurry because we had the best area Eckerö to go.
First we drove to twitch Little Grebes to Västerön, but we never found the right place. We just lost an hour and saw just a Smew – again. Then we drove to Degersand to try Purple Sandpipers and a couple of other still lacking species. On the parking place we heard a Crested Tit but the Purple Sandpipers had flewn just 10 minutes before to the other side of one small island. We waited for an hour but couldn’t see the sandpipers, but a Velvet Scoter was found as our last species. We also saw a big diver flying, but it was far too far to identify.
After all we got 51 species and we were on 8th position from 20 teams altogether. So we had done well! We won many experienced teams that had been in Ahvenanmaa many times!
During the next day we tried to twitch some of the species we hadn’t found in a rally. But first we drove to Styrningsudden (the place we hadn’t been) to watch to the sea. But there was no migration, just a flock of Common Scoters and some Black Guillemots. So we decided to leave even though many other teams were staying.
We decided to go to Degersand to try Purple Sandpipers again. And this time we were lucky! After 20 minutes we saw a flock of 40 sandpipers flying far over a small island.
The only Feral Doves of the whole Ahvenanmaa were found at Storby and then we twitched a Little Grebe that was hiding extremely well under the ice and reeds. On the way we found a Reed Bunting and a couple of Parrot Crossbills too.
At Storby we twitched two Steller’s Eiders which were closer than the bird we had found a day before. And when we were trying to find a Wren we found a better bird, a Water Rail!
At Hammarland Bosta we twitched a Dipper which we now found after some hundreds of meters walking. Then we had to drive to Maarianhamina harbour where we had a ferry 2.30 p.m.
From the harbour we saw now about 3000 Tufted Ducks and 10 Scaups. On a ferry we walked straight to the deck and scoped to the sea as long as the sea was open (not frozen). In an hour or so we saw 9 Eiders, 9 Smews, 8 Common Scoters, 2 Great Crested Grebes and 60 Steller’s Eiders! I think we had better time than everyone else in Finland, because in the same time Sweden beat Finland in olympic icehockey final.
In Turku we dropped Mikko and Antti to the railway station and then continued to Kirkkonummi where we were at my parents at 11 p.m.
On 27th of April we started our way home at 10 a.m. Our only good observation was made after a couple of minutes driving when we saw a Common Buzzard. Even though we drove around the south-eastern coast and along the eastern border to Parikkala we couldn’t find anything else.
After all, the trip to Ahvenanmaa had been successful – I had 4 new winter ticks and 16 new February ticks and many good year ticks! But even more important, we had had really good time!