. . Lintuharrastajan päiväkirja Birders diary . .

In the end of November I was birding again only during my lunch-hour and then on Friday afternoons. I had too many other things to do during the weekends. The best birds I saw between the 12th and the 17th of November were: a new White-backed Woodpecker, some Velvet Scoters, a Hazel Hen, 2 Red-throated Divers, some flocks of Long-tailed Tits, another White-backed Woodpecker and a Grey-headed Woodpecker.

On the 18th of November I had stayed overnight in Lappeenranta and with Pekka Punnonen we participated to twitch a Thrush Nightingale which had been already for weeks in Seppo Löfgren’s garden. It was the latest ever in Finland. But unfortunately it wasn’t found anymore but it was nice to see Seppo’s garden where he has seen amazing number of birds. Even now we saw a Barnacle Goose, a Coal Tit, 2 Chaffinches and Common Crossbills. Then we continued to Ylämaa Väkevänjärvi where we saw a Bewick’s Swan and 2 Wigeons and just a kilometre in Miehikkälä side a Great Grey Shrike.

On the last days of November I still saw a Red-necked Grebe, some Great Crested Grebes, a Chaffinch, a Canada Goose, a Scaup, a Red-throated Diver and a Pine Grosbeak. A huge flock of 352 Whooper Swans were still in a field in Tetrisuo. But once it came cold again they left towards south. The last species I saw was a Nutcraker which was my 61st species in Parikkala-Rautjärvi area in November. All but a Dipper were seen in Parikkala.

Turku area winter-bird race

On the 30th day I left to drive towards Salo. On the way I saw 10 Pine Grosbeaks in Orimattila and after 5 p.m. I parked to Kalle Larsson’s garden. We had a fun evening but we had to go to sleep early as the race would start 7 a.m. next morning.

On the 1st of December we woke up early and at 6:30 Mika Korkki, Markus Ahola and a French birder Julien Terraube, that Markus had got to know in the university, came and at 7:00 we were out and birding.

Our first species was seen in Salo railway-station – Rock Doves. Then we continued a long way to Särkisalo. We parked as close to the sea as possible but it was still too dark to start birding. So we had good time to get to know each others. It was soon clear that even though the weather was extremely cold and we didn’t expect too much for the rally, we would have lots of fun for sure!

When there started to be some light we walked to the shore and found out that there was really bad visibility. Haze and fog made it impossible to see far. Common, Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, Goosanders, Ravens, Hooded Crows, a Goldcrest, a Treecreeper, a Siskin and then finally a couple of small flocks of Velvet Scoters were seen. The visibility was so bad that the scoters were easier to identify with binoculars than with a scope!

After some walking around the spit we saw some migrating flocks of Whooper Swans, a couple of White-tailed Eagles and then after a short drive we stopped again and found a Pine Grosbeak, Smews, Tufted Ducks and Mallards.

I Förby we found 4 Nutcrackers, and a Common Scoter which Mika, Markus and Julien saw in a harbour while we were searching for tits with Kalle. Of course we heard a Black Woodpecker then but there we not enough of us then. In Finby we walked for some time but found only some common species like a Jay. On the bridge away from Särkisalo we saw a Sparrowhawk.

Then we continued to Perniö and in Latokartano rapids we sae a Dipper easily. Lake Saarenjärvi was frozen so only a lonely White-tailed Eagle and an Otter were seen by the open river. Then after some driving Markus saw a raptor flying over the fields and it was a stunning young Golden Eagle!

In Tuohittu fields we searched for Canada Geese and a Crane that had been there still a couple of days earlier but they had left. Luckily Kalle found a Hawk Owl perched on the top of a spruce and Julien got a nice lifer.

Soon after that we got a message that an Iceland Gull had been found in Salo rubbish tip. We weren’t far but we decided to stop a couple of times on the way as we had planned. We saw a flock of 25 Chaffinches and 5 Bramblings, heard a Linnet and finally saw a Fieldfare too. We were only 5 minutes from the rubbish tip when we got a message that the gull had left towards Halikonlahti. That was where we were going too but again we had a couple of stops on the way. After we had seen 2 Collared Doves, we drove to Halikonlahti but soon found out that all the gull places were completely frozen! So we continued to a forest nearby but the feeder was empty and there were no birds at all. Luckily we found one of our worst missing species a Crested Tit, but still no Willow or Coal Tits. We knew that we wouldn’t find them anymore as we had only time for Halikonlahti anymore.

In Halikonlahti we walked towards the fields first and tried to find a Pheasant. We were following the footsteps of some Pheasant when we saw a huge flock of Jackdaws flushing because of the had scared of something. And we found a Red-throated Diver flying low over them just 10 metres over the field! Soon we found our first Pheasant and then soon 100 more of them! Luckily we checked them carefully and found 4 Grey Partridges with them. Then we flushed a male Teal from one ditch and saw a Starling flying over us. Then Mika found a White Wagtail and soon after that we saw a flock of 50 Goldfinches flying over us. It was already getting dark when at 3:22 p.m. I saw a flock of 5 geese flying towards us. Of course we thought they were Canada Geese but suprice they weren’t – they were Greylag Geese! We had seen 8 new species in last hour but then we didn’t see anything anymore and we had seen altogether 52 species during the day.

The log was in Turku in a restaurant Koulu. Altogether 19 teams had participated to the race and soon it was clear that 4 teams were better than the rest. Luckily we were one of them. Unfortunately we were the 4th after all and lost to the 3rd only by one and to the second by 2 species. The winner had got eve 60 species!
Anyway we were really happy, we had seen 3 species that nobody else had seen and we had really had fun! After all we were one of the only teams that had stayed only in a smallish area and we had been talking 2 languages and another wasn’t Swedish but English.

After all we stayed in the restaurant until the midnight before drove back to Salo to sleep.

On the 2nd of December we woke up at 8 a.m. and at 9 o’clock we were driving towards the rubbish tip. We of course hoped to see the Iceland Gull there. I stayed there for a couple of hours and saw even 5 species that we had’t seen a day before but no Iceland Gull. So when I was absolutely freezing I started my long way back home.

I drove along the coastal road and after an hour driving I got a message that an Iceland Gull was now in Kirkkonummi Ämmässuo. I checked the distance from my navigator and found out that I was only 20km from the rubbish tip! So when I parked to the end of Kauhalantie there were only a couple of cars before me. We had to look to the rubbish tip far outside the gates and it took some time before the Iceland Gull was seen in flight but not everyone saw it then. After I had seen it in flight already 4 times it finally flew towards us and landed to a small flock of Hooded Crows and then all the other twitcher that had managed to get there already saw it. It was a nice year-tick for me. After the parking place was getting emptier again I left to drive towards Parikkala where I was in the early evening.

J.A.