February 2011
Extremely cold February
The winter continued extremely cold and even -30 degrees was common. On the coldest morning it was -37 degrees on our thermometer! Luckily in the end of month the sun started to warm up during the days and the increasing lightness was cheering up.
But the winter had been so cruel that there weren’t many birds around. So I really didn’t bother to do birding much. I also tried to save my car a bit. On the 3rd of February I was visiting Simpele and I went to see a Hawk Owl to Änkilänsalo from where it had been found a couple of days earlier. In Kokkolanjoki River I saw a female Goosander and on the way back home I saw a Pygmy Owl perched on the top of a spruce in Joukio.
On the 6th day I walked for a couple of hours around Kangaskylä villafe and checked some of the best streets and their feeders. Only better birds were a Waxwing and a Siskin. On the next day a Great Grey Shrike was perched on the top of our garden birch.
On the 12th day I went to try to see a Great Grey Owl to Rautjärvi Suomaankorpi, but I couldn’t find it. A Hawk Owl was still found in Änkilänsalo, even though it had moves a little. In Kokkolanjoki rive I saw a couple of Dippers.
On the 16th day I was on my way to play rink bandy to Imatra when I saw a big owl crossing the road. Unfortunately it was too dark to see anything else that it was either Ural or Great Grey Owl.
On the 20th of February I did a winter bird count again. When I woke up it was still -35 degrees but soon the sun rose higher and at 10 a.m. it was surprisingly warm even though it was still -30! In the beginning I was walking and only corvids were awake, all tits and sparrows were still in their holes. When I got closer to Siikalahti I started to ski and even though tits started to wake up there were so few birds that they didn’t really slow my speed. After all I saw fewer birds than even on my route: 253 birds, 17 species and the most common ones were Jackdaw 44, Magpie 42 and Great Tit 40. The best birds were on the tops of 2 trees only 100 metres from each others in Kangaskylä, a Pygmy Owl and a Great Grey shrike.
On the 24th of February we finally had our long-waited holiday! After my match we drove to Kirkkonummi where we slept for some hours and in the 25th at 7 a.m. we continued to Helsinki-Vantaa airport. We were on our way to Morocco and Western Sahara for 10 day to finally get the big number of WP-ticks on one country. We hoped for 20 more lifers!
On the 22nd of February Matti Lötjönen called me that he had been again checking one possible Marsh Tit that had been reported in Satumäki. I had also been there several times but I hadn’t seen anything interesting and Matti had found a Coal Tit but nothing else. But now he had found a tit that looked like a Willow Tit but it had started to call like a Marsh Tit. I was there after a couple of minutes and heard the bird calling many timed but it was in the gardens so I couldn’t see it. But it really sounded like a Marsh Tit. After work I went there again and soon I found the bird and it really was a Marsh Tit – the 1st ever in Parikkala!
On the 24th day the long-waited holiday finally started. In the afternoon we drove to Imatra where I played the last rink-bandy match of the season and then we continued to Helsinki-Vantaa airport where we stayed the night on the benches. On the 25th of February at 7 a.m. we checked in and after a couple of hours waiting our flight left towards Paris. And after an hour in airport in Paris we continued to Casablanca Morocco! We birded 10 days in Morocco and Western Sahara and the trip-report – Morocco and Western Sahara trip story (210 species, many WP-ticks, more than 6000km driving and so on!).