Same Corn Bunting again and winterbird-count
On the 1st of March I went to see the Corn Bunting again. The weather was really bad and it was getting colder but luckily I managed to see the bird easily. The bird that I had found 4 weeks earlier together with Sampsa Cairenius had been very popular, there had been almost 200 twitchers during February and many were coming again to see it in March. Also the same Wood Pigeon was still there in Pätilä.
We also visited Joutseno Kukkuroinmäki rubbish tip where we counted 180 Ravens, 800 Jackdaws, 200 Hooded Crows, 90 Yellowhammers and also saw a Starling. Like almost every rubbish tip in Finland, it is not ok to go inside the gates of Kukkuroinmäki. Only a couple of birders have got a permit to do bird-counts there. Then we drove to Imatra where on a previous day had been almost 200 Herring Gulls and 5 Great Black-backed Gulls but now the weather had changed radically and we found only 2 Great Black-backed Gulls and one Herring Gull! A male Smew was still there with many Goldeneyes.
On the 2nd on March I checked briefly Kokkolanjoki in Simpele and saw 16 Whooper Swans, a Goldeneye and 2 Dippers but a Little Grebe was hiding somewhere.
Then on the 3rd of March I did a winterbird-count again. I skiid around Siikalahti and counted 13 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, 4 Willow Tits, a Coal Tit, 20 Blue Tits, 60 Great Tits, 2 Jays, 19 Magpies, 23 Hooded Crows, 9 Ravens, 14 House Sparrows, 40 Tree Sparrows, 23 Green Finches, 4 Redpolls, 2 Bullfinches, 2 Common Crossbills and 32 Yellowhammers. Also 4 Red Squirrels and fresh footprints of Lynx were seen.
J.A.