Spring comes
After our trip to Sicily we found out that in Finland the spring hadn’t taken any long footsteps. We had got several SMS that told us that we had really chosen tmiing of our holiday perfectly. On the 11th of April when I was again in Siikalahti, it seemed that our luck was even better, it was the first better spring day! I was there only for a couple of hours and saw a Bean Goose, a Hen Harrier, a White-tiled Eagle, even 3 Golden Eagles in 20 minutes, more than 10 Sparrowhawks, about 10 Common Buzzards, 2 Ospreys, 4 Kestrels, a Crane, 25 Lapwings, 12 Black-headed Gulls, 100 Wood Pigeons, 5 Meadow Pipits, 5 Blackbirds, a Fieldfare, a Great Grey Shrike, 6 Snow Buntings and 4 Reed Buntings.
The next days weren’t that good: On the 12th of April I saw a White-tailed Eagle, 2 Marsh Harriers, 2 Hen Harriers, a Rough-legged Buzzard, 2 White Wagtails and a Redwing and on the next day I visited also Särkisalmi and Lemmikonsalmi where I saw Wigeons, Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Curlews were already here and there and in Siikalahti I saw 5 White-fronted Geese with Bean Geese, a Mistle Thrush and on the next day for example a Dunnock and a Linnet.
On the 15th of April I had planned to visit Siikalahti only briefly as the weather was pretty bad. The western wind was very cold and it was raining and snowing but also the sun was shining when the clouds moved away for a while. But when we climbed to the tower we saw 10 Rough-legged Buzzards migrating on the sky. In next 5 hours I saw altogether 42 Rough-legged Buzzards, 20 Common Buzzards, 6 Ospreys, 8 Sparrowhawks, 2 Goshawks, 3 Hen Harriers, 2 Marsh Harriers and 4 Kestrels. 2 Barnacle Geese, Canada Goose, a Redshank, a Green Sandpiper and a Stock Dove were other better birds. On the 16th of April the new year-ticks were a Pochard in Särkisalmi and a Common Snipe in Siikalahti, where also 2 Rooks were seen.
On the 18th day a Moorhen was found in Särkisalmi and on the next day I saw 5 species of geese when Bean, White-fronted, Canada Geese, 1 Barnacle Goose and 2 Greylag Geese were seen. Song Thrush was also seen and on the 20th of April a Great Crested Grebe was in Särkisalmi and in the evening I saw a Woodcock while I was jogging.
On Saturday 21st of April was a tradiotional migration watching day. We met with Harri Partanen in Siikalahti at 5 a.m. or I was 5 minutes late and missed a migrating Woodcock. The day was a disaster because of the fog! The first 8 hours we were waiting for the fog move away and saw only little bit more than 100 migrating birds – mostly thrushes. Between 7 and 8 a.m. we saw only one migrating bird which was a Green Sandpiper and then after that we had an hour without any migrating birds.
And it was very quiet still after that for a couple of hours. Only better bird was a Bittern that moved from a reedbed to another…
But then finally at 12:30 p.m. the fog cleared and suddenly there were thrushes and Chaffinched migrating. Altogether we saw 1370 migrating thrushes, and 1387 Chaffinches but nothing better. Greenshank, Golden Plover and Lapland Bunting were yearticks. In the evening I still saw a Northern Wheatear in Särkisalmi.
On the 22nd of April was much better! The weather was amazing! In the afternoon I was wearing only t-shirt! The migration wasn’t very strong but the quality was good! One of the first birds was a migrating Montagu’s or Pallid Harrier female, unfortunately we didnät see it very well. Then we saw a 2nd c-y White-tailed Eagle, a migrating Black Kite, a migrating 2nd c-y Golden Eagle, 2 adult White-tailed Eagles and then the best an adult looking Greater Spotted Eagle! 4 migrating Cormorants, a Red-throated Diver, 3 Black-throated Divers and a couple of Smews were also nice. There were lots of people in Siikalahti and everyone really enjoyed the day!
On the 23rd of April the new yeartick species was a Shoveler in Lemmikonsalmi. A Moorhen was still in Särkisalmi and in the evening 2 Water Rails were calling in foggy Siikalahti.
J.A.