March 2006
Very quiet March
The whole March was snowy and cold. It was minus degrees all the time, so even the end of the month was very quiet – almost no migrants. But the sun was already shining – the long winter was coming to its end.
I hadn’t able to do bird watching because I was working and in weekends I had rink bandy games. Our season was longer than ever!
So all birding I did on the way to play to Imatra. So Rautjärvi Simpele Kokkola River and Vuoksi River were the places.
On the 4th day I found a Goosander from Kokkolanjoki. It was the first outside Vuoksi for me – so some kind of migrant. The Marsh Tit was gone but there were still some Hawfinches on Korjontie feeder. On Vuoksi there was a Whooper Swan which had been wintering on Russian side of the river.
On the next day I did a winter bird count, which was quite easy this time because there were a good skiing route around the Siikalahti. But the only better observation was the first real migrant, a Snowfinch.
On the 11th day I found the first 2 Herring Gulls from Vuoksi. And n the 17th day we were skiing in forests with my parents that were staying in Parikkala for some days and we visited the familiar Siberian Jays.
On the 22nd of March I twitched a Ural Owl that was sitting only 3 metres from the main road 6 in Särkisalmi. The owl seemed to be really skinny, but otherwise in good shape.
On the next day there were already 330 Herring Gulls and a Great Black-backed Gull on Vuoksi. And on 24th day there were the first couple of Goldeneyes outside Vuoksi on Kokkola River. Also a White-backed Woodpecker was seen flying in Simpele. The first Common Buzzard was already in Siikalahti.
On the 24th of March we had a “traditional” (second) forest bird rally. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to join to the whole rally because I had a match in same day but I was rallying from 4 a.m. to 12 a.m. Others were continuing 4 more hours. All the teams had their own area where to do birding and the main target was to find forest birds. The most important species was a White-backed Woodpecker which gave 10 points to the team.
It was very quiet in the forests but I managed to hear a Tawny Owl and a Tengmalm’s Owl at night and then I found 3 Hazel Hens, 3 Common Crossbills, a Blackbird, 8 Long-tailed Tits and luckily 2 White-backed Woodpeckers!
On the 28th there was a Rook sitting on the closest tree of hour house. It is quite rare species here in eastern Finland. In the afternoon I was once again in Vuoksi where I had 4 Smews (only two had been wintering). Now there were 900 Herring Gulls!
So not many migrants arrived during the March but April will be much more interesting!