October 2004
Östra Norrskär
First half of the October I was in island of Östra Norrskär which lies some 25 kilometres west from the westernmost coast near the city of Vaasa.
I started my way to Vaasa at 1st of October with Hanna. We drove first to Lappeenranta where we twitched a Marsh Tit which had stayed there some weeks already. We tried also the Mandarin Duck as a month-tick but it had decided to move on.
I left Hanna to Lahti from where she continued to Helsinki to teach a bird-lesson. I continued to Vaasa where I managed to get about 10 p.m. In Vaasa I went to Antti Vierimaa who had been a guide in Siikalahti with us for last 2 summers.
We did do some birding in Vaasa area, but mostly we did shopping for the next two weeks. We had to buy lots of food for us but also some for Jari Helstola, Mauri Jalonen and Aarne Lahti who were already in the island. They had been there already for one week.
On 3rd of October we jumped to a boat in Klobbskat-harbour and started our journey to Östra Norrskär. In a boat there were also several other birders who were going to the Västra Norrskär which next island west from the Eastern Norrskär where we were going to.
After one hour we landed to Västra where other birders left but we continued a little backwards where there was a smaller boat waiting for us. Aarne and Mauri helped us to jump to the smaller boat and soon we landed to our home island.
Almost directly we all (Aarne, Mauri, Jari, Antti and I) walked around the island together. This was the best way for us to get familiar with the island and with its birdlife. The best observations of the 2.5 hours walk were 2 Peregrine Falcons, 4 Knots, 1 Tengmalm’s Owl and Tree-toed Woodpecker.
After few days we had learned how to work in the island. First two hours from the sunrise we watched to the sea from the easternmost point of the island. We didn’t see lots of migration but of course it was nice to see Black Guillemots, Razorbills and other Finnish seabirds. Better observations for the island were a Grey Heron, 4 White-fronted Geese and a Pink-footed Goose.
After 10 a.m. we started to seek birds from the forests. We did succeed: Several Pallas’s Leaf Warblers were found!
During afternoon we were walking around the island and trying to find birds from the meadows, reed beds and rocky coasts. We did find a late Whinchat and a late Turnstone, several Purple Sandpipers, Little Stints, Arctic Redpolls, Shore Lark and lot more.
After one week the days went with routine. We did every day search the island for whole daylight and we probably found all the birds of the whole island in most days! We did find every day some new species, but mostly the birds seemed to be the same every day. The weather was too windy and night too clear so there was not too many birds in the island.
On second week Jari “Hessu” Helstola moved to the Västra where the team changed, and we got a new birder – Timo Wegelius.
The second week didn’t start very well. The migration was really bad in the morning and the days weren’t good either. Anyway we managed to see our 100th trip tick with Antti. We still had couple of Pallas’s Leaf Warblers in the island and the total of them was 8-10 birds. Other nice birds were 3 Tengmalm’s Owls, a flock of 31 Pine Grosbeaks, Rock Pipit, Snow Buntings and the finest of all a great White-billed Diver that migrated on 12th of October.
In a couple of days we visited Västra and did some birding there and had sauna! After the sunset we always kept the list of the birds we had seen during the day. About 9 p.m. we were already so tired that we were asleep.
We had a couple of extremely poor days but on 15th of October when we had an island-rally with all the other island that where there were birders, the weather changed. At night the wind stopped and it was a little bit cloudy, so we finally got some birds to our island! We saw 71 species including 2 Pallas’s Leaf Warblers, Peregrine Falcon, Ring Ouzel, Purple Sandpiper and almost all the birds which were still possible to find. But some of the other islands had even better days: more southern islands Signilskär had 83 species, Säppi 81 and Lågskär 79. Our neighbours had 67 and the nothernmost island Tankar 59 species.
On 16th day we went again to Västra and there we got our last two trip-ticks: Brent Goose and Tree Sparrow. So the total of our trip list had 109 bird species which is a lot in a small island in October!
Next day we were in Vaasa again and on 18th of October I drove back to Parikkala.
After a couple of days resting we drove to Kirkkonummi to my parents. The main reason was to take some Hanna’s paintings to Inkoo. There is a bird-art gallery in Galleria Karaija on November.
I had been thinking to continue to Hanko Halias bird station, but my plans changed because someone stole Hanna’s wallet in Helsinki. So we both drove back to Parikkala while there was one of the rarest birds ever in Finland in Kokkola – Phylloscopus coronatus.
Of course on next day there was the first ever Pallid Swift in Finland in Halias! Luckily I had been planning to get there day later, so I wasn’t that disappointed. Anyway I have a strange feeling that I have been always in wrong place in wrong time this year.
25th of October there were still hundreds of ducks in Siikalahti. Even a Pochard was still present. 29th day we birded the whole day with Hanna and Ilkka Jarva. We started from Punkaharju Hirvikoski where we saw only some migrants. In Saari we didn’t see much more but a migrating flock of 100 Brent Geese and 10 bigger unidentified Anser/Branta geese was a surprise. In Tarvaspohja we saw a Pine Grospeak and in Siikalahti we still saw a very late Moorhen. Also Hazel Hen, Smews, Whooper Swans, Snow Buntings, Merlins, Scaups and Lesser-spotted Woodpecker were seen amongst more common birds.
Soon there won’t be lots of birds anymore. The winter is coming and the birding will really get boring. Anyway I hope there will be some surprises to come. At least I will keep on birding!
On the last day of month we went again to say hello to Siberian Jays. We had just seen a film about just these Siberian Jays which Hannu Siitonen had done. It is always nice to see these beautiful, brave and clever birds.
