February 2007
A February without surprises
The February was as boring as I had expected. Luckily I had a lot to do! Mostly I was working for the local bird association, but on every weekend I had also something else.
On the 1st of February I saw a Nuthatch and a White-backed Woodpecker in Siikalahti and on the second day we went to twitch a wintering Robin to Joutseno with Jari Kontiokorpi. On the way back we saw a Blackbird, Fieldfare and a couple of Smews in Imatra. In Simpele I still saw 5 Chaffinches, a Goldfinch and an Arctic Redpoll.
On the 4th and 5th day we were in Kuopio where was a meeting of bird-ringers. Hanna passed the ringing exam for the ringing station ringers, so in future se can be ringing many more species. The weekend was ok; it was good to see many friends.
On the 9th day I saw a Sparrowhawk over our house and In Siikalahti I saw a Grey-headed and White-backed Woodpeckers.
On the next day I went to Punkaharju Lusto to speak about our trip to Georgia and Armenia for our neighbour bird associations meeting. There we decided to go to Uurainen to twitch an Azure Tit on the next day with Eino Repo.
So on the next morning I work up early and drove to Juva where “Potu” was waiting and we continued to Juva where we met Eino and Harri Miettinen. At 10 a.m. we were in Uurainen where were many twitchers even British! After a couple of hours the Azure Tit finally came to one of the feeders and I was the only one to get a picture of it. The bird was seen 5 times but only very shortly. It was with 56 Blue Tits and they were just flying around. I think some twitchers even missed the bird. On the way back I saw a Pygmy Owl in Savonlinna.
During the next 2 weeks I saw just a Grey-headed Woodpecker, some White-backed Woodpeckers, a flock of 40 Black Grouses in Siikalahti, an Arctic Redpoll a Black Woodpecker and some Common Crossbills and so on.
On the 24th and 25th day I drove to Kiljava to a Birdlife meeting for rarity committee members. Before we started to drive there we visited Siikalahti with Marus Keskitalo and saw again the woodpeckers. In Joutseno we twitched the Robin again and at midday we arrived to Kiljava. The weekend was really fun. It was good to meet many new birders! On the way back we were really tired, but we had a stop in Lappeenranta Toikansuo, but nothing was found. On river Vuoksi we saw a couple of Smews.
On the last days on February I tried to get a couple of owl-species more to my winter bird rally list but only a Tawny Owl was heard. After all I managed to get 89 species during the winter in South Karelia.