. . Lintuharrastajan päiväkirja Birders diary . .

Spring was coming quickly in the beginning of March. Sun was shining and it was raining quite a lot so there wasn’t too much snow anymore. Wind were from south so I was expecting to see much more migrants than I did.

So after all it was quite boring to look to the empty skies after amazing Thailand trip, where we saw more than 300 species in 9 days. Anyway I started visiting Siikalahti on my lunch-hours, but on the 10th of March there were still only some winter-birds. Only surprise was that House Sparrows had arrived back to Kangaskylä after they had been missing whole winter.

On the 12th day I was in Imatra and hoped to see lots of gulls, but for some reasons there are not many gulls nowadays on Vuoksi. I saw only 88 Herring Gulls. A few Whooper Swans were also seen and one more was seen in Parikkala Joukionsalmi too.

On the 13th day I twitched a Marsh Tit in Kannas where it was again in feeder. I didn’t see any Marsh Tits in whole February, so it was good to see that at least one bird was still around. A Whooper Swan was heard and a couple of Siskins flew over me.

On the 14th of March I saw a White-tailed Eagle in Siikalahti. Whooper Swans were already on their territory, just sleeping on the ice. A Grey-headed Woodpecker was calling all the time like in many springs before. On the 15th day I saw 4 Lapwings and 12 Snow Buntings. And now there were more Whooper Swans fighting for their territories.

On the 16th of March I saw a Skylark, 5 Starlings, 51 Snow Buntings and an early Red Bunting. A couple of Goshawks were soaring on the sky and already 10 Lapwings were flying around.

On the 18th day there was already all the regular swans and a couple of families were migrating too. A Blackbird was seen briefly and woodpeckers were very active. I saw 2 Black Woodpeckers, 2 Grey-headed Woodpeckers and 2 Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, also a Common Crossbill was seen. On the 19th day almost the same bids were see but there was already 6 Starlings and now a flocks of 70 Snow Buntings. On my way to Imatra again I saw a Dipper in Simpele Kokkolanjoki and the overwintering Canada Goose had got some friends in Vuoksi.

On the 20th of March I saw a couple of Common Buzzards, but on the 23rd day I had an amazing surprise as I saw the earliest ever Marsh Harrier in whole South Karelia! It was already flying over it’s old breeding place in Siikalahti! Other birds seen were a Common Buzzard, a Stock Dove, 5 Wood Pigeons, 30 Lapwings, 2 Skylarks and 3 Reed Buntings. On the 24th day only birds to mention were a Crane and a nice flock of 180 Snow Buntings.

I was checking the only open water places in Särkisalmi several times but for some reason there was almost nothing! I saw only Whooper Swans, a couple of Mallards and 2 pairs of Goldeneyes, but even most of them left when the overwinter arrived.

On the 25th day the weather changed and it started to snow again. The wind was from north and nights were very cold! Then I still saw a Common Buzzard, 10 Lapwings, 4 Skylarks, 9 Starlings, 7 Reed Buntings, a Gold Finch and a Rook but on the next days there was no way to go birding at all!

On the 29th day it was still cold and again snow on the ground. It had been more than 10 minus degrees at night. Most of the migrants had returned more south. Anyway a brief visit to Siikalahti was worthy as I saw a White-tailed Eagle, a Common Buzzard, a Sparrowawk, a Stock Dove, a Wood Pigeon, a Skylark and 7 Snow Buntings. On the 30th day I saw a White-tailed Eagle and on the last day of March another White-tailed Eagle, an adulta Great Black-backed Gull, which is surprisingly rare in Parikkala, a Rook and the first White Wagtail. And still the weather forecast didn’t promise any better very soon…

J.A.

On the 8th of January we came back from Ireland and on the way back to Parikkala, we stopped a couple of times in the evening and saw an Eagle Owl in Lappeenranta and Mallards, Goldeneyes, 2 Smews and a Canada Goose in Imatra Vuoksi.

On the 9th day we had both started at work again but on my lunch-hour I saw Rock Doves in Kangaskylä, twitched 2 Marsh Tits that had been found (or relocated, the birds might be the same that I had found already in November) in Kannas where I also saw a White-backed Woodpecker.

On the 10th day I saw the Marsh Tits again and also a Treecreeper and a Blackbird and in Tyrjä I found 6 Mallards. On the 11th day I saw a Goshawk in the village and a flock of 5 Black Grouses in a short forest-trip.

On the 14th of January I had a game in Lappeenranta and on the way I stopped in Simpele where I saw 3 Nutcrackers and in Vuoksi where I saw 3 Cormorants and the same Canada Goose. On the 15th day I visited Melkoniemi forests again and saw some Crested Tits and familiar Siberian Jays. In Peruspohjanjoki I found a Dipper. On the 16th day I saw 5 Long-tailed Tits in Kannas and a Great Grey Shrike in Siikalahti. On the 17th I saw 2 Nuthatches in Kirkonkylä and a White-backed Woodpecker in Siikalahti.

On the 19th the Rock Doves had been breeding again and there were 6 birds flying around the village. It is crazy that they are breeding in the middle of the winter! On the 21st day I saw a Great Grey Shrike in Kolmikannankangas, 8 Whooper Swans and 2 Dippers in Simpele Kokkolanjoki and in Lappeenranta 6 Teals in Reijola, a Grey-headed Woodpecker in Pappilanniemi and 3 Cormorants in Kaukaanselkä.

On the 22nd of January we were birding with Hanna and her brother Miika and sister Elissa and after we had seen 2 Grey-headed Woodpeckers in Tarvaslampi, we started from the Siberian Jays. Then we saw a Goshawk while driving towards Melkoniemi and then surprisingly found a new Marsh Tit that was visiting one small feeder. After we had seen a flock of 9 Black Grouses and a big flock of Yellowhammers with some Tree Sparrows and 1 House Sparrow, we made next stops in Kokkolanjoki. There we found some Whooper Swans and a Dipper and heard a Redpoll.

In Koitsanlahti Mantkanniemi we saw the familiar 2 Marsh Tits and soon continued to Siikalahti where we had a Great Grey Shrike and then we ended the trip in Kannas where we saw 2 more Marsh Tits. So we saw 5 Marsh Tits in a couple of hours!

On the 26th day I saw a Hazel Hen in Siikalahti and on the 27th a Coal Tit in Kannas where I didn’t see any Marsh Tits anymore and strangely I didn’t see any other Marsh Tits either anymore. During the day I drove south to Kirkkonummi but on the way I saw only the same familiar birds in a very thick fog.

27th of January Matias Castrén picked me up and together with him and Jari Laitasalo we drove to Hanko where we had Bongariliitto meeting in the weekend. But first we did some birding and saw Mute Swans, Common, Herring, Great Black-backed and some Black-headed Gulls, a Coot, some Red-brested Mergansers, some hundreds of Long-tailed Ducks, a few White-tailed Eagles and so on on the open sea. Later we met the others in Tvärminne and had a long meeting which ended about at midnight.

On the 29th we started birding again and after we had seen a Black Woodpecker in Tvärminne we headed to Vedagrundet where we found a Rock Pipit that had been seen a couple of days earlier there. We checked a couple of places before it started to get too windy and saw mostly same species as on the previous day but also some Tufted Ducks with 29 Scaups and a Smew in Täktbukten Kobben and about 70 Velvet Scoters with at least 1 Common Scoter in Högholmen.

On the 31st day I found a Nuthatch in Siikalahti and of course there was also a White-backed Woodpecker.

On the 1st of February I saw a couple of Coal and Crested Tits in Särkisalmi and a White-backed and a Grey-headed Woodpecker and a Great Grey Shrike in Siikalahti. In the evening we heard a Tengmalm’s Owl in Tarvaslampi while having sauna.

Marsh Tits had disappeared even though I visited the feeders several times but woodpeckers were seen almost daily. On the 2nd day the only new bird was a Chaffinch in Särkisalmi.

On the 4th day I saw Long-tailed Tits and a couple of Siskins in Kirkonkylä and then we continued to Siikalahti with Harri Partanen. There we had a magical time as we saw a Grey-headed, a White-backed, of course several Great Spotted but also a Lesser Spotted and a Three-toed Woodpecker and a Nuthatch in a very short time! We had so great time that we still drove to Rautjärvi Latvajärvi and twitched a Hawk Owl.

On the 5th day I was again in Lappeenranta and saw some familiar birds on the way. I also tried to twitch Collared Doves but had no luck. But I managed to see the first ever wintering Stock Doves, 4 birds in Joutseno Myllärilä.

Then I saw again only woodpeckers and the same Great Grey Shrike and on the 10th day the same Mallards and a Dipper in Tyrjä. On the 11th day I was driving a long way along forest-roads but saw only one flock of 5 Black Grouses and 2 Common Crossbills.

On the 12th of February I was in Lappeenranta again and on the way I managed to twitch 2 Collared Doves in Anola. I had to wait for them for an hour before together with Pekka Punnonen we saw them flying over us and an adult male Goshawk was chasing them! It was vey close that the another bird wasn’t caught but luckily it survived. We managed to see also the Stock Doves again and then I had to hurry to my game.

On the 13th day I visited Melkoniemi forests in nice sunny weather and saw a Black Woodpecker and heard 3 Hazel Hens. On the 17th day I saw in Siikalahti a White-backed Woodpecker and a Nuthatch again. On the 18th day I did a winterbird-count and there were less birds than ever. I started a little bit late and the weather was also quite poor, but I really had to make the count now, as all the other possible days I will be doing something else, mostly birding in Thailand. Anyway there were some nice surprises like 2 Coal Tits, a Grey-headed Woodpecker, 3 Redpolls, 2 Hazel Hens and a Rook that was really a big surprise! In the evening we did a owl-listening trip to Melkoniemi and heard altogether 5 Tengmalm’s Owls.

On the 19th of February there were 4 Whooper Swans, 13 Mallards and a Goosander in Kokkolanjoki. On the next day there were already 5 Goosanders. Then on the next days we were preparing to our trip to Thailand. Only bird seen was on the way to the airport when we saw a Common Buzzard in Porvoo.

J.A.

On the 9th of December I visited Simpele Kokkolanjoki where I saw a Little Grebe and a Dipper. On the way I saw one of the same Marsh Tits in Koitsanlahti. On the 10th day we stopped in Imatra Vuoksi where we saw 9 cormorants, a Canda Goose and a male Smew.

On the 11th of December I was in Kokkolanjoki again and with Miika Soikkeli we checked all the better places. We saw 2 Little Grebes4 Whooper Swans, 9 Mallards, 3 Goldeneyes, a Black Woodpecker and a flock of 9 Long-tailed Tits. In Latvajärvi we saw 35 Black Grouses and in Änkilä a Goshawk. On the way back we saw 2 Grey-headed Woodpeckers in Koitsanlahti.

During the week I saw only a Goshawk in Kangaskylä and a Velvet Scoter in a small open water area in Lemmikonsalmi. On the 14th day I saw a Nutcracker in Simpele Roukko and on the 16th a Dipper in Tyrjä.

On the 18th of December we were again in Simpele and on the way we stoped in Koitsanlahti where were no Marsh Tits this time but 5 Pine Grosbeaks flew over us and a White-backed Woodpecker was drumming quite distant.

On the Christmas Eve both Marsh Tits were seen again and there was a Lesser Redpoll in a flock of Redpolls. It was my first ever in South Karelia. On the 26th day we visited Melkoniemi forests and saw all 4 Siberian Jays. A Capercaillie was heard flushing but almost nothing else was found.

On the 27th of December I did my winter-bird count again and it was one of the worst counts ever. All I saw were 17 Black Grouses, 2 Rock Pigeons, a White-backed Woodpecker, 19 Long-tailed Tits, 22 Blue Tits, 63 Great Tits, a Crested Tit, 2 Willow Tits, a Treecreeper, a Great Grey Shrike, 11 Jays, 17 Magpies, 50 Jackdaws, 14 Hooded Crows, 5 Ravens,12 Tree Sparrows, 15 Green Finches, a Redpoll, 10 Bullfinches and 30 Yellowhammers.

On the 29th day we were in Vuoksi again together with Miika Soikkeli and Ilkka Jarva. We checked most of the Finnish part of the river and saw a young Mute Swan that had been found earlier, a Canada Goose, a female Smew, at least 26 Cormorants and a couple of Common Crossbills.

On the 30th of December we drove to Kirkkonummi for New Year (or really to do first of January trip). On the way we saw a Goshawk in Joutseno and then tried to twitch a wintering Ortolan Bunting in Asikkala but all the fields were completely open, so there we no Yellowhammers at all. On a flock of 80 Redpolls we saw 2 Arctic Redpolls and 2 Gold Finches flew over us.

On the last day of the year we visited Kirkkonummi Porkkala but there were almost no birds at all, even though the sea was completely open. Only bird to mention was a young White-tailed Eagle.

The first of January we started with at least 130 other twitchers in Turku Topinoja. At 9 a.m. the gates were opened only because of us and we marched behind local birders to the right spot where even 3 Siberian Accentors had been overwintering. There was a small feeder where at least one of the birds had been visiting, so we started to look at it. It was still dark when I found the bird behind some bushes and managed to identify it as a Siberian Accentor but only a handful of other twitchers saw it. And as Hanna didn’t see it, we had to see it again.

During the morning we of course saw plenty of year-ticks and some of the better birds were a Goshawk, a Sparrowhawk, about 250 Herring Gulls with only 1 young Great Black-backed Gull, a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, a Fieldfare and a Woodpigeon that flew over us.

The locals were walking in the hill-side where the accentor had been any times but after a couple of hours there was still no sign of it. Then a bigger group decided to walk through the hill-side in a line and finally they flushed a Siberian Accentor that landed in front of all twitchers to the top of one bush. We were finally ready to move on and while we were walking back to our car, 4 Starlings flew over us.

We drove to Paimio Pitkäporras where should have been abselutely sure Stock Doves but all we saw was a flock of 400 Redpolls with some Arctic Redpolls. While we were driving again, we saw a White-tailed Eagle.

We drove through Salo centrum but didn’t see any Collared Doves, but 5 Woodpigeons. Then we continue to Kumela where we finally found 6 Stock Doves. But then the rest of the day didn’t go well. We tried to find Nutcrackers in several places without luck. Of course some common year-ticks were seen. So after all I got only 2 new first of January ticks.

On the 2nd of January we had an early flight to Ireland. We were birding mostly in western coast and the trip-reports can be read here:

J.A.

The end of November was pretty quiet. Weather was changing a lot and after several very wet days on the 25th of November there was again some open water in Siikalahti and Whooper Swans had arrived to check their territories. It seems the birds are wintering very close, probably in Simpele Kokkolanjoki and moving further only if necessary. There was also open water in Lake Simpele and I checked it from a couple of points but found only Common Gulls and Goosanders. Other birds seen were a Great Grey Shrike in Siikalahti and one of two long-staying Marsh Tits in Koitsanlahti.

During the weekend I had games in Lappeenranta on both days so I was birding there. On the 26th of November I saw 11 Cormorants in Imatra Kupari and a Wren, a Sparrowhawk and 9 Long-tailed Tits in Toikansuo. On the 27th day I was driving to Lappeenranta again and saw a Golden Eagle on the way in Rautjärvi Laikko. I picked up Sampsa Cairenius from Imatra and there we saw 16 Cormorants in Kupari and a long River Vuoksi we saw 5 Whooper Swans, a Canada Goose, 2 Long-tailed ducks, a Tufted Duck, almost 600 Mallards, Goldeneyes, Goosanders, some Common Gulls and a Black-throated Diver that is probably the same bird that was moved to the river after it had got some treatment. In Immalanjärvi we saw 18 Velvet Scoters and in Toikansuo we saw a Wren, 2 Robins, and a Chiffchaff that was back there along the ditch after several weeks. In Joutseno we still saw a flock of Waxwings and a Chaffinch.

On the 29th day I saw a Grey-headed Woodpecker in Kangaskylä and on the last day of November I still got some ticks to my Parikkala-Rautjärvi Bird Club November-race list: a Chaffinch and Goldfinch were found in Kangaskylä and Nutcracker in Särkisalmi. Altogether I saw 74 species in the race.

On the 1st of December I saw an Arctic Redpoll and a Siskin in Kangaskylä and a Goshawk in Koitsanlahdenkangas. On the 2nd day I heard a Grey-headed Woodpecker in Koitsanlahti but the feeder in Mantkanniemi was once again empty so there were no birds at all. Luckily on the 3rd day the feeder was full again and I saw the familiar 2 Marsh Tits again. In Siikalahti I saw 2 White-backed Woodpeckers and a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and in Kirkonkylä I saw a Blackbird and a Nuthatch.

On the 4th of December I had again a game in Lappeenranta in the evening so we went birding together with Sampsa again. After I had stopped briefly in Vuoksi and seen a Canada Goose and a Smew, I picked up Sampsa in Joutseno and we continued to Luumäki Lepistö to twitch Lapland Buntings. There had been at least 3 birds in a flock of Yellowhammers. It was a cold morning and it took some time to find the flock but when we finally found it, there were 1300 Yellowhammers! Luckily we managed to find one Lapland Bunting almost immediately and in those 3 hours we were checking the birds, we saw at least 1 more bird. We also saw very briefly one very whitish bunting but it disappeared too soon. It really looked a bit like a Pine Bunting. And while we were there a male Pine Bunting was found in Loviisa Pernaja, but I still don’t know why we didn’t go to twitch that bird as we were only 1.5 hours from Pernaja. Maybe we were freezing too much? Or probably I was thinking that I would visit the place anyway a couple of days later in Porvoo area Independence-day bird-race… Other birds we saw in Luumäki were a flock of 9 Black Grouses, a Goshawk, a Sparrowhawk, a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, 6 snow Buntings, a Chaffinch, a Common Crossbill and a Great Grey Shrike. Back in Lappeenranta we saw a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in Mattila and a Wren again in Toikansuo.

On the 6th of December we had a traditional Independence-day bird-race in Porvoo area where I had been several years already. On the previous evening I drove to Lapinjärvi to Juha Tuomaala and in the evening we made the plan for the next day with Juha, Nette Meriluoto and Markus Keskitalo who we contacted by phone.

The wake up was before 5 a.m. and about a half an hour later we were driving towards Porvoo where we picked up Markus. And soon we were ticking the first birds as Markus knew roosting places for House Sparrows and a Pheasant. Then we continued to Juha’s friend’s garden to twitch a Tawny Owl. We were hooting there for some time without any answers, but when we were already walking back to our car, the owl started to call!

Then we drove a longer way to Loviisa where we planned to be near the nuclear-plant when the sun started to rise. We soon had some Bullfinches, a Blackbird and common tits with also Willow, Coal and Crested Tit and also saw a White-tailed Eagle before reaching the open sea. There we saw some Mute Swans, Tufted Ducks, 7 Smews, quite a few Herring Gulls but no other gulls, 4 Mallards flew over us, but no Cormorants or any other ducks were seen.

A brief visit in Loviisa centrum was worthy as we saw a Goshawk. Then we started to drive towards Pernaja where the Pine Bunting had been. But there was no news about the bird in a whole day and also on the previous day it had been seen only once in the morning. It was an important species for me, as Finnish Rarity Committee had rejected all records of female Pine Buntings recently and I had seen only one female long time ago.

On the way we saw a Jay and a Black Woodpecker and finally we were in Kopparsbacken about at 11 a.m. We soon saw lots of twitchers standing along a field-track but after we had parked we soon noticed that there were familiar faces standing almost next to our car. From Markku Loippo and Vesa Väkevä we heard that the bird hadn’t been seen during the whole morning and even on the previous day only 3 of about 60 twitchers had seen it! So many twitchers were there already for second day!

We were talking with Markku and Vesa when we noticed that the big group was twitchers was moving nervously – they clearly saw something! We were quite far from them so there were two options: either start watching the birds that were now visible on trees in the middle of the field or then go to check what they were doing. I decided to start running towards them and after some running someone shouted to me that the bird was right on those trees, on the right tree and the second lowest bird. I stopped and started scanning the Yellowhammers with my scope but I was in different angle, so the bird was on the second tree from right and the lowest bird on that tree. But there it really was – a stunning male Pine Bunting! But then I realized that the bird was in very bad angle to my friends, so I started running back. And the track was extremely slippery and I fell down and broke my tripod! Luckily the birds didn’t got scared of the bang and no bones were broken even though my knee and ankle hurt pretty badly. When I got up and kept on running I saw that Markku had luckily found the bird and soon everyone in my team had seen it too!

I soon got my camera from the car and managed to take some pictures of the Pine Bunting and some more twitchers that were just arriving managed to see the bird from our scopes before all buntings suddenly flushed and flew over us to the other side of the big field.

We had really managed well, exactly as we had planned on the previous evening! We had lost only 10 minutes and got an excellent race-tick! I had really been afraid that this visit in Kopparsbacken could destroy our whole race, as I really wanted to see this species…

We continued soon and saw a flock of Redpolls, 10 Goldfinches and 3 Arctic Redpolls and the next stop was in Porvoo Emäsalo bridge where we saw Common Gulls and a Great Black-backed Gull. Tanssisaari feeder had got several species of woodpeckers but in a brief visit we saw nothing new. But soon Markus found a flock of Long-tailed Tits that were crossing the road while we were driving again. Then we saw plenty of Fieldfares and a Chaffinch and then we saw a few species that we had though we should use much more time without stopping at all – great Grey Shrike, Common Buzzard and Rough-legged Buzzard were seen in a couple of minutes.

Then we had to start driving towards Lapinjärvi. It was a long drive but finally we were in a big field and found a Hawk Owl easily. On the next stop Grey Partridges weren’t found but I found a young Golden Eagle flying on the other side of the field!

Soon after that we twitched a Nuthatch on one feeder and then hurried to twitch Dippers. But we had to check 4 rapids before we found 2 Dippers and then it was getting dark already. Luckily while we were walking back to our car we flushed a Hazel Hen!

We still tried to find some owls especially Pygmy Owls but without luck. Finally it was almost 5 p.m. when I said goodbye to Juha, Markus and Nette who continued back to Porvoo to hear the results of the race and I started driving back to Parikkala as the next day was a work-day.

I was already back at home when I heard the results. We had got 50 species and once again lost the victory by 1 species! We had seen 3 species that no other 13 teams had seen and because of that we came second. But this time a silver didn’t taste bad at all – we had enjoyed a perfect weather with good friends and really had a good birding day! And the most important thing for me was that we had seen a Pine Bunting which was a WP-tick for me! And the bird hadn’t been seen since that…

J.A.

I have done some crazy things before in my life, but the weekend from the 19th to 20th of November will be remembered as one of the craziest. I was supposed to be either in Bongariliitto meeting in Helsinki or BirdLife meeting in Lohja or seeing lots of old friends as they had arranged a meeting in Lappeenranta and I had planned to be in Lappeenranta on Saturday and in Lohja on Sunday as I was a council-member of Bongariliitto in BirdLife, but I got a small injury druring the week and I couldn’t participate on sports that my friends had planned for Saturday. And as I hadn’t booked myself anywhere else on Saturday, I ended up doing something completely different

On Friday afternoon my friend Kalle Larsson was asking other WP-twitchers to join him to twitch American Tree Sparrow to Skåne, Sweden. I wasn’t interested in the beginning but when there were already 3 participants and the flight prices were reasonable, I booked myself in!

So at 2 a.m. on Saturday I started to drive towards Helsinki-Vantaa airport. At 6:30 I met Kalle, Jari Pitkäkoski and Janne Kilpimaa there and an hour later our plane left towards Copenhagen, Denmark.

We landed to Copehagen ar 9:10 a.m. local time and soon we had our rental Skoda Superb and were driving towards Malmö. We crossed long Öresund bridge which cost us 80 euros, so almost as much as the rental car. And after 45 minutes driving we were in Staffanstorp.

There were lots of other twitchers in Staffanstorp and we walked along muddy tracks to see the places where American Tree Sparrow had still been on the previous afternoon. There we met several familiar birders: Swedish Richard Ek and Jesper Segergren, Danish Christian Leth and British Richard Bonser, Josh Jones, Ernest Davis and also other familiar faces. Swedes had of course already seen the bird and also Josh and Ernie had managed to twitch it on previous afternoon but now they had been searching it with about 100 other twitchers from everywhere. It really seemed that the bird was gone. I was still pretty optimistic. but anyway we decided to leave everyone else to search for the bird and continue about 100 kilometers further to twitch a Red-necked Stint that had been twitchable for some days and was still in Vejbystrand. There was also an American Black Duck nearby, so there was anyway a possibility for all of us to get a lifer. And of course we would drive quickly back if the American Tree Sparrow would be found.

We were mostly driving along a huge motorway, so it took only a bit more than an hour to get to Vejbystrand and there we could see a big group of twichers along the shore. We hurried there and soon found out that the Red-necked Stint was only 100 meters from us but sleeping with a flock of Dunlins on a reef but behind the Dunlins and rocks. We tried to see it from every angle but as we had only two scopes with us it was pretty frustrating. It seemed that the locals could see the bird time to time raising its head behind other birds and rocks but even though we were told where to watch exactly, we couldn’t see it at all.

After a couple of hours trying Kalle started to plan to leave to twitch the American Black Duck but then all the birds awaked and started to move. And of course some birders could see the stint again, but they the all flushed and flew straight towards north. We couldn’t even see any smaller bird on the flock.

The atmosphere was pretty bad as we had no idea what to do. Some of the Swedes had seen the bird and some just gave up and left to their cars. But a smallish group started to walk along the coast towards north and we of course followed them. After 1 kilometer walking we heard that the flock had landed to the coast in front of us and there we could soon see birders watching in front of them.

But the situation was now even worse! There was a small rocky island about 100 meters from the shore and the flock had landed behind the rocks so there were only a few Dunlins visible.

After some waiting Kalle decided to leave to try to see the duck and we had only 1 scope left. Again we were a bit frustrated as it was difficult to get any information from the locals, if they were sure that the stint was there at all, or were they just guessing. We also had no idea if this was normal behavior for the flock, we had thought these birds would also feed sometimes.

After some more waiting we met Olof Jönsson who we had contacted before the trip and also during the day for a couple of times. He had arrived just before the flock had flushed and of course he had also managed to see the stint for a couple of seconds then. The flock must have been behind the rocks from the angle where we had been watching as I had been using the scope then. He told that the bird had been very difficult also earlier but not this difficult…

We were again trying to see the flock from every angle and then walked 100 meters further to the sand-dune where we could get a little bit higher to see the island a little bit better but of course more distant. There we could see some tens of Dunlins but still no smaller stint with them.

Most of the twitchers were giving up when the light was getting worse with cloudy weather in the afternoon, but we had to keep on trying. Also Olof had to leave and he wished us luck when we said goodbye to him. Kalle was still trying to find the duck without luck and we had all our warm clothes in the car, so we started to feel pretty cold too.

Then suddenly one older birder got a phone-call and he had heard us talking English with Olof and he told us that someone could see the stint from the dyne. We hurried towards the dune and could see that the group of birders in a place where we had been earlier weren’t watching anything but another group even further but in different angle were clearly watching something and there were more and more twitchers arriving towards them.

We climbed to the dune and almost immediately I decided to ask, if I could watch through someone’s scope to see the bird or at least to find out the exact place where they were watching. And there it really was – the Red-necked Stint – between some Dunlins! It was distant and the light wasn’t too good anymore but with a good scope I could see it was clearly a small stint with short bill and short feet. It also looked like less roundish that Little Stint would have been. But of course I would have wanted to see this very interesting and difficult to identify bird much better but after all this waiting I was pretty happy to see it at all! Jari and Janne K. also saw the bird through other birders scopes and soon Jari had found it with his own Swarovski too. When I was watching the bird once again with Jari’s scope the bird suddenly flew one meter left and behind the rocks. But after some time it had walked back to the same spot where it had been earlier. But the light really started to get too bad to see anything except the small size of the bird anymore, so soon we also decided to start walking back towards the small harbor where we had first arrived.

We walked to do some shopping to the village and after some waiting Kalle arrived to pick us up. Kalle hadn’t been lucky and after all he hadn’t seen any of the 3 birds we had been hoping to see. Luckily he was the only one who had seen Red-necked Stint earlier and even in Finland.

Kilpimaa was driving again and after an hour and half we were in Denmark again. We stopped to eat and fill the tank and once we got back to our car, we had got a parking ticket – 100 €! So we really weren’t enjoying our trip. Anyway I was pretty happy that I had got at least one WP-tick, but of course the American Tree Sparrow had been the target number one on this trip, but it hadn’t been found at all anymore and it never was seen anymore.

Once we had parked our car to the parking hall, we dropped the key to the office; we still had to pay the parking ticket. But soon we had to hurry to catch our plane which was leaving very soon.

Our flight left at 8:10 p.m. and we landed to Helsinki 25 minutes earlier than the schedule at 10:20. We said goodbye to each other and soon I was driving towards Lohja. I was in Kisakallio at 11:30 p.m. and I still went to see some friends that were still spending evening after the BirdLife meetings. Hanna had also been there for the whole day. At 00:30 a.m. it was time to go to sleep.

On Sunday we had BirdLife council meeting which started at 9 a.m. and ended at 1 p.m. Hanna was again chosen as the vice-president of the BirdLife Finland government. In the afternoon we visited my parents in Kirkkonummi before we started a long drive to Parikkala. We were luckily at home in humane time but at least I was very tired. It had been a long weekend!

J.A.

Lake Simpele was really freezing early! Bays were all frozen already and so were some of the biggest open water areas too. So there weren’t many Whooper Swans anymore and this autumn there were almost no Goosander flocks either.

On the 11th of November I visited Tähtiniemi which was also frozen almost completely. In a small open water area I still saw a Common Scoter and a Velvet Scoter. In Koitsanlahti there were still 2 Marsh Tits on feeder and in Joukio I was surprised to see the lake was still open there. There were some Whooper Swans and Goosanders and 5 too distant ducks, but also a Barnacle Goose with a Brent Goose! Apparently the wing of Barnacle Goose was broken so these friends had stayed near Laatokanportti motel and the owner of the fish-shop was feeding these geese from the shore.

After work I still drove to Simpele Kokkolanjoki and twitched a Little Grebe. I saw also a Wigeon, a Tufted Duck, 5 Barnacle Geese, Mallards, a Dipper and Long-tailed Tits there.

On the 12th day we were birding in Rautjärvi together with Hanna and Harri Partanen. On the way we visited Barnacle and Brent Goose and Marsh Tits. We also saw a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in Mantkanniemi. In Kokkolanjoki we saw all the same birds again and in Lahnanen we saw a Fieldfare, an Arctic Redpoll, 2 Mallards, 2 Goldeneyes and heard a Grey-headed Woodpecker. In Kangaskoski we saw 2 Coal Tits, a Great Grey Shrike and a flying flock of 15 crossbills.

Then we went to twitch some owls as we got some instructions from one of our friends whom we met in Simpele. We were checking a couple of places for Hawk Owls but without luck, but we found a Short-eared Owl some kilometers from the right place. It was perched on a disc golf goal. The bird was quite tame so we managed to get some good pictures. But after all it moved more distant closer to some trees. It was my first ever Short-eared Owl in November.

On our tour in Rautjärvi we saw crazy numbers of Black Grouses. In the biggest flock there were 67 birds and altogether we saw 103 Black Grouses in very short time!

On the 13th of November I had a bandy game in Lappeenranta in the evening. I did stop to check that geese were still alright and in Kokkolanjoki on the way. Along the river I flushed a Goshawk that was feeding on one of the Barnacle Geese. Then I spent the whole day along a ditch in Toikansuo where had been even 2 Siberian Accentors and lots of other migrants staying for “too” long. One of the Siberian Accentors had been seen still on the previous day, but I didn’t find it in 6 hours searching. But I was happy to see 8 Robins, 5 Wrens, 2 Dunnocks, a Chiffchaff, 2 Blackbirds and a Dipper. Some of these species I had seen only once or twice in November before and never in South Karelia!

On the 14th day I visited familiar Siberian Jays and on the 15th day on a brief visit in Kokkolanjoki I saw some of the same birds again but also a Goldcrest which was my November-race tick number 71.

J.A.