. . Lintuharrastajan päiväkirja Birders diary . .

On the 9th of September the last family of Barnacle Geese was seen last time. After that only one bird that had a broken wing was left behind. On the 10th day I visited Saari briefly but saw nothing special except a Pale Coulded Yellow – even Corn Bunting was hiding. On the11th day I saw a young Pallid Harrier migrating.

We visited fields on the couple of evenings but fields were completely dry so there weren’t many birds. Nights were also very light because of the moon and some auroras so birds saw us too well. So we didn’t ring many birds. On one trip we saw a one year ole Brown Bear that was running in front of our car for almost a minute before it disappeared into the forest.

On the 13th of September I saw a couple of Nutcrackers in Kangaskylä and then a Franklin’s Gull was found in Säkylä. It was too long way for me but Veikka Kosonen sent me a message that he was planning to go and his schedule was perfect for me too, so after work I started driving to Kouvola. After 3 p.m. Veikka picked me up in Kouvola and we continued driving towards Säkylä.

The gull had been missing all the time after I had left from work. But I was hoping that it was still around and would come back to the Lake Pyhäjärvi before evening to roost. A couple of times we discussed about if it was clever to keep on driving or not but we decided to give a try.

We had only 20 kilometers to go when we got a message that the gull had been re-found. Luckily it stayed on the lake until we got there and I went to look at it through one friendly twitcher’s scope. Then I put up my own scope and started to look at the gull better.

Soon a Black-headed Gull started chasing the Franklin’s Gull but landed next to it and for some minutes they were swimming together in peace. Then Black-headed Gull flushed and Franklin’s Gull followed it and they flow a long way to the northern side of the lake and disappeared behind some island. With a couple of other birders we tried to follow it and managed to choose the right spot and I found the Franklin’s Gull swimming a little bit closer now with many other gulls. And here it stayed until the darkness when we were already driving back towards east. And on the next morning a few birders were there early enough to see it still but then it flushed towards the fields but was never found again.

I was back at home at 2 a.m. but after a couple of hours sleeping we were in Kukonkanta putting up the mist-nets. We caught 3 Wrens, 2 Dunnocks, 14 Robins, a Bluethroat, 2 Sedge Warblers, 3 Blackcaps, 15 Chiffchaffs, a Willow Warbler, 12 Goldcrests, 14 Blue Tits, 4 Great Tits, 2 Chaffinches and 5 Reed Buntings. In the afternoon we went to Pohjansuo where we found the Corn Bunting again. We put up a couple of mist-nets but we weren’t even close to catch it. A Bluethroat and a Whinchat and so on were ringed. Otherwise we saw nothing interesting.

On the 15th day we were again in Kukonkanta and caught 3 Wrens, 2 Dunnocks, 8 Robins, 2 Blackcaps, 9 Chiffchaffs, 2 Willow Warblers, 4 Goldcrests, a Long-tailed Tit, 3 Blue Tits, 13 Great Tits a male European Nuthatch, a young Lesser Redpoll and 6 Reed Buntings. After ringing we headed again to Pohjasuo where the Corn Bunting was still avoiding our mist-nets. In the evening we still went to Siikalahti where we saw nothing special. Altogether we had seen 25 Red-throated Pipits during the day.

During the week the weather stayed very warm but the best observations were butterflies: I saw plenty of Cotton Bollworm Moths, quite a few Pale Clouded Yellow and also two Short-tailed Blues.

We did again a couple of netting trips to fields but Great Snipes were missing. Finally on the 18th of September we found 3 of them in one field and I managed to catch them all. The funniest bird during the week was a young Marsh Harrier that had some snow-white feathers on its wings and body. First I saw the harrier in Siikalahti on the 5th day but then on the 14th it was in Saari Pohjanranta – and again on the next day and later in Siikalahti. Cranes left very quickly and in the end of the week there were only 260 of them and then on the next day they left too. First Rough-legged Buzzards were seen migrating too.

At weekend the weather really changed and it was even minus degrees at night! We expected there would be lots of migrants everywhere but no. We were keeping mist-nets in Kukonkanta on both mornings but caught altogether only 62 birds – 7 Dunnocks, 4 Bluethroats, 5 Robins, 15 Chiffchaffs, 2 Willow Warblers, a Goldcrest, 16 Blue and 13 Great Tits, 2 Yellowhammers and 8 Reed Buntings. We also saw only same 2 Nutcrackers, 2 Merlins, a late Tree Pipit and a Rustic Bunting and so on. Only bird we saw migrating more was Meadow Pipit.

On Sunday evening we saw the first migrant Barnacle and White-fronted Geese and some flocks of Bean Geese. Also 2 couples of Gadwalls, 22 Great Egrets, a Bittern and a late Curlew were seen.

During the weed after a couple of cold days the summer was back again. It was 20 degrees again and even 15 at late evening. The best observations were a migrating Golden Eagle on the 24th and then on the 25th evening I managed to catch a Short-eared Owl with some other ordinary birds with net. On the 26th I saw a couple of young Pallid Harriers migrating together in Siikalahti. There were already some hundreds of geese too. On the 27th we caught 11 Woodcocks which one was a control, 2 Golden Plovers and 2 Skylarks which one was a control.

On the 28th we went to Saari. On the way we had 3 Bewick’s Swans in Särkisalmi and flocks of Brent Goose and Long-tailed Duck in Rautalahti. Altogether we saw 1 8 Great Egrets, the same white-marked Marsh Harrier was now in Akonpohja and other birds we saw were 12 Cranes, a Northern Wheatear and a flock of 10 Two-barred Crossbills in Jyrkilä. After checking all places in Saari we hurried to Koitsanlahti to twitch a Yellow-browed Warbler that Jarmo Pirhonen had found. After some searching we managed to see the bird with other twitchers. In the evening we went to fields again but caught only a couple of Woodcocks and Skylarks which another one was a control. We also saw a Long-eared Owl.

On the 29th of September we were ringing in Kukonkanta and caught 4 Wrens, a Dunnock, 9 Robins, a control Bluethroat, 2 late Garden Warblers, a Blackcap, amazing 50 Chiffchaffs (and at least 20 more were seen), 4 Goldcrests, 11+1c Blue and 31 Great Tits, a Yellowhammer and a Reed Bunting. We also saw 3 Barn Swallows, a flock of Brent Geese and a Northern Wheatear. In the evening in Siikalahti the best observation were 10 Gadwalls.

J.A.