. . Lintuharrastajan päiväkirja Birders diary . .

After we had come back from England I was very tired at work – I had been sleeping only 2.5 hours. So I decide to go out on my lunch-hour and drove to Siikalahti to see if the bay was already completely frozen. It had been -8 degrees last night. I was driving along the road towards Siikalahti when I saw a pale bird perched on the wire behind the field. I stopped and immediately realized it was a Hawk Owl! It was my first self-found Hawk Owl in Parikkala and only second ever in Siikalahti – my local patch.

In November we decided to have a bird-competition. On the 1st day I saw a Canada Goose, a Wigeon, a Tufted Duck, 2 Common Scoters, 2 Great Crested Grebes, a Grey-headed Woodpecker, a Blackbird and a Redwing and so on and on the 2nd day a Coal Tit and flock of Long-tailed Tits and so on.

On the 3rd day we had a floorball tournament but during the day I had a message that the first ever for Finland and only 4th for Europe and WP Slaty-backed Gull had been seen in Espoo Ämmässuo rubbish tip! Anyway I decided to play the games but in the evening I called to Pekka Punnonen and in the evening I drove to his home to Lappeenranta.

On the 4th of November we woke up at 3 a.m. and a half an hour later we picked up Mikael Rytkönen and started to drive towards south. Before 7 a.m. we were in Kirkkonummi Vitträsk where the bird had still been seen late in the previous evening and soon we had walked to the shore of the lake. There were already some 20 twitchers and more were coming all the time even though it was still completely dark!

After some waiting we started to see some shapes of swimming gulls and grebes and after 15 minutes more we saw that there was only one dark-backed gull on the lake. Of course we thought it would be a Great Black-backed Gull but we kept on looking at it as it was our only hope. The light was still bad and there was more fog coming all the time but after maybe 15 minutes waiting again it finally opened its wings and it really looked good! We had already thought that the secondaries had a wide white border but it was clear when it had opened its wings! Maybe we really had the right bird! Soon the bird flushed with some Herring Gulls and we could see it even much better – it really was a Slaty-backed Gull! It was still far but when it was flying against the dark forest on its back-ground we could see the colouration of its wings and the dark hood and even its moulting in its secondaries.

About 100 twitchers were happy now but there were still many more coming but the bird had already disappeared to the fog. But we thought that it had just left to the rubbish tip again so we left there too.

Ämmässuo rubbish tip is a closed area so we drove along a bad road to a place where it is a best visibility inside the area. Luckily we managed to park our car even though there were already too many cars. And soon we were watching to the foggy rubbish tip. Some Pine Grosbeaks were flying over us and one stopped to the top of pine to sing for a minute. Soon the visibility came better and we could see some hundreds of gulls but there were thousands more behind the rubbish-hill. All gulls were flying a couple of times but all dark-backed gulls we saw were Great Black-backed Gulls. Then Tero Linjama found another interesting gull – a Caspian Gull! It was a classic-looking 1st calendar year bird and even though it was far, it was possible to identify as we saw it opening its wings. But soon all birds were flying again and we lost it.

The Slaty-backed Gull wasn’t found but soon we got a message that it was again in Vitträsk. All twitchers left and of course there was a chaos on the muddy road. We weren’t in that bad hurry but we decided to leave soon too. After all it was a false alarm – there had been a dark Herring Gull or some kind of hybrid. Anyway we stopped there briefly and saw a Red-necked Grebe, Black Woodpecker and a Nutcracker. But then we decided to do something else. We drove to Espoo Laajalahti where we saw 40 Gadwalls, 36 Smews, 4 Grey Herons, a Pine Grosbeak, a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and so on. Then we drove to Kirkkonummi Saltfjärden where we found a Hawk Owl and heard a late Reed Bunting. Then we still drove back to Vitträsk where still were lots of twitchers and also lots of gulls but not the right one. It was already getting dark when we decided to start our long way back home. I was in Parikkala at 10 p.m.

On the next days I tried to increase my November bird-race list and on the 5th day I heard a Hazel Hen and saw 2 Siberian Jays and on the 7th day I saw 4 Velvet Scoters, 2 Long-tailed Ducks, a Great Grey Shrike and finally 4 Pine Grosbeaks (first ones for me in Parikkala for a couple of years). On the 8th day I saw a Smew and some Common Crossbills and on 9th day a Dipper and so on.

On the 10th of November I did a winter-bird count with Matti Lötjönen. We started from my garden and walked around Siikalahti. In 6 hours we saw 37 species and 1156 birds. The best birds were 313 Whooper Swans, a Canada Goose, a Long-tailed Duck, a Hazel Hen, a Black Grouse, a Pygmy Owl, a Grey-headed Woodpecker, a Coal Tit, a Crested Tit, 6 Long-tailed Tits, 2 Starlings, a Pine Grosbeak, a Gold Finch, 260 Redpolls, an Arctic Redpoll, 8 Common Crossbills and so on.

J.A.