Saturday trip to North Karelia
During the last weeks I hadn’t been birding much. The biggest reason had been me ear that had went worse than ever 3 weeks after the second surgery. I am almost half-deaf now which is quite depressing… Of course another big reason is that this time of the year is very quiet in Parikkala. Anyway I had been sporting very much.
On Saturday the 28th of July we left twitching to North Karelia. We drove straight to Kontiolahti Jukajärvi Kylmäsuo where a couple of days earlier had been a Pectoral Sandpiper. It hadn’t been found anymore on the previous day but the place is very good so we decided to check it anyway. The weather was very nice so it really wasn’t optimal for waders but anyway we managed to find this Pectoral Sandpiper with help of some local birders. It was quite distant but I managed to get some kind of video of it. Other birds there were a Little Stint and a Temminck Stint.
We also walked on the other side of the area and heard and saw a young Citrine Wagtail briefly in flight. We saw the Pectoral Sandpiper from the other side too and it was now hiding under some vegetation so it wasn’t visible from the place where all the new twitchers were. So we had to help them to see the bird which finally started to walk and came well visible. Only other birds were 3 more Temminck Stints.
Next we continued to Joensuu to eat and do some shopping. A couple of hours later we continued to Liperi Ahokylä fields where we immediately found a Lesser Grey Shrike that had been there for a long time. It wasn’t shy so we managed to get some good pictures and videos. There were also at least 5 Red-backed Shrikes.
Soon we were heading towards Polvijärvi Solanlampi. This was the tower we had been trying to find with my British friends in early June but we had probably missed the last wooden sign to the tower. we walked to the tower where we met Hannu Palojärvi whi had arrived a little bit earlier. First we saw just a family of Wigeons, a Slavonian Grebe and a young Pochard but then after some time I found the family of ducks we had been searching. The lake was extremely full of water-plants so the ducks weren’t easy to see and they were quite far too. But there were 6 ducks sleeping and 5 of them looked like Shovelers and one bird was a little bit smaller, greyer and differently marked. After some waiting they finally woke up and we could identify the mom of the family as a blue-winged Teal. The youngsters were hybrids between the mom and a Shoveler. I tried to get some pictures and videos but the birds were far. We waited for an hour but they never came closer before they swam behind the reeds. So we decided to leave.
On the way back home we stopped to check several bird-towers that we hadn’t visited before. Rääkkylä Vuoniemi, Kiesjärvi and Jouhtenus all looked good but the time of the year and the time of the day were wrong so we didn’t see anything. In Kitee we still checked Hovinlampi bird-tower which was in so bad shape that it wasn’t aloud to climb there anymore. Anyway I went to check the view but no birds were seen.
On Sunday I drove to Punkaharju where I finally saw Nutcrackers as a year-tick in Laukansaari. Then I was biking the longest trip ever around Puruvesi. In 3 hours and 40 minutes I biked 112 kilometers. And of course on Monday I saw a Nutcracker on my way to work. Then after one week I participated to Puruvesi tour. I managed to drive this 108 km track on 3h22min.
J.A.