. . Lintuharrastajan päiväkirja Birders diary . .

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.

After a week in Jurmo I decided to try to make my day-lists better as the end of October I had been so many times abroad that my lists were embarrassing. And yes, I have been listing day-lists for years while I’ve been putting my observations to Tiira which is the bird-observation archive in Finland. So I visited Siikalahti every day and several times in Härskiinmutka, Rautalahti and Kirkonkylä too to see some missing species.

In Siikalahti there were still good numbers of waterfowl; Tundra Bean Geese and White-fronted Geese still in the end of October and still in the beginning of November hundreds of Wigeons and Mallards, the best daily counts were 470 and 320, but also lots of Tufted Ducks 115, Shovelers 30 and some Teals and on one day also 3 Gadwalls. And still there were also hundreds of Barnacle Geese. I also saw some Long-tailed Ducks, Smews and Scaups. And White-tailed Eagles and Goshawks were chasing all of them.

In the end of October in Rautalahti I saw Barnacle Geese, less ducks, but 27 Canada Geese, 44 Teals, 23 Scaups, 10 Common Scoters, 8 Velvet Scoters and 6 Pintails. Most of the species were still there in the beginning of November but numbers were getting smaller quickly.

At weekend 29th and 30th of October I visited Saari on both days. In Uukuniemi Suurenjärvenliete I still saw a Skylark, 55 Snow Buntings, 2 Arctic Redpools and 3 Pheasants in Lammintaus, in Jyrkilä and Pohjanranta I saw a Rough-legged Buzzard and altogether I still saw 30 Mistle Thrushes too. Other records during the weekend were 8 Black-headed Gulls in Särkisalmi, 2 Nuthatches in Kirkonkylä, 2 Capercaillies in Soininmäki and a Pygmy Owl in Vartialahti. In the last day of the month I saw even 7 species that was missing only on that on October.

In November we had again a traditional November competition. I have never taken the race seriously and now it’d have been perfect start with a mild weather and lots of birds around, but the 1st of November was a Tuesday… Anyway I started before my work in Siikalahti where I had a Pygmy Owl and a Shoveler and so on and in Härskiinmutka I saw a big surprice, a Little Gull – my first ever on November! Then on my lunch-hour I went to Rautalahti and Kirkonkylä and saw all the species I expected. There were still Barnacle Geese flocks here and there but quite a few flocks were now migrating. In the afternoon I still twitched a Hawk Owl in Oronmylly.

On the 2nd of November the best new species were a Grey-headed and a White-backed Woodpecker in Kirkonkylä and in Siikalahti I still saw a Pintail. In the evening the Hawk Owl was still in same place.

On the 2rd day I visited Tähtiniemi where I saw a couple of Pine Grosbeaks. Then I stopped in Koitsanlahti Mantkanniemi to check a flock of Redpolls and then heard a high and clear call from the top of the trees and found a Marsh Tit! It was only the 2nd ever Marsh Tit in Parikkala! It was calling a lot and I managed to get some mobile recordings of it. I had a feeling that there might have been a second bird too, but I had to hurry back to work. Twitchers didn’t manage to relocate the bird so I visited there and some places nearby in the afternoon but saw only 2 Bramblings. In the evening Hannu siitonen called me about an owl that was in one garden on the village. I went to see it and it was a very weak Tengmalm’s Owl. We did our best, but it survived only until the next evening.

On the 4th of November I had a strange day and nothing was really going as planned but in the end I managed to leave to Helsinki early enough to get to Seurasaari when there was still some light. Luckily I managed to twitch the first Taiga Flycatcher for Finland quite easily and after some waiting it landed to a branch next to a small pond and stayed there until the last light, so I managed to get some pictures and videos too. When almost everyone else had left, the bird started to call actively and I also managed to get very good recordings.

Then I had a long drive to Nakkila where I started to sleep in my car while it was -6 degrees outside!

On the 5th of November I woke up after 6 a.m. when it was luckily only -3 degrees but it was snowing which wasn’t good. I ate well and then drove in the middle of Leistilänjärvi fields to a place where the first Upland Sandpiper for Finland had been mostly seen in recent days. Soon there were more and more twitchers arriving and soon there started to get lighter. The bird had been found about 8 a.m. every morning but this time it wasn’t. So after some waiting twitchers started to spread around the huge field-area. I also walked quite far along a track to the middle of the field as I expected to find the bird from the call when it is flying. Once I heard a Golden Plover calling and then with a couple of other twitchers we saw 9 Stock Doves and homeyeri-type of Great Grey Shrike. Then Mika Teivonen found a big falcon flying on the southern side of the fields. It was in bad light but when it started to soar, we managed to see contrasts on its wings and it clearly was a Gyr Falcon! Some birders saw the bird much better from the beginning of the road.

Finally before 10 a.m. I heard a call of an Upland Sandpiper from the sky and Antto Mäkinen found the bird flying high over us. We lost the bird against the sun, but I shouted so loud that Miska and Tommi Loippo heard me and they could follow the bird flying over the masses of twitchers close to the main road. Other birders hadn’t seen or heard the bird but luckily Mika Bruun soon found it perched in the middle of the field.

The Upland Sandpiper was tired and looked weak and even the sun started to shine warmer and melt the fields, the bird wasn’t feeding very much but sleeping and resting mostly. It had some ice on its feathers and a couple of times it really looked like dying in any minute but after some time it suddenly flew to the middle of the fields where it again hid on the border of the field. Then at 12:30 p.m. it flew as far south as we could follow but still seemed to land to the field-area. Then I decided to leave to Pori to do some birding with Mika and his friends. But soon we heard that the bird had still been found before it had been seen flying as far as it was possible to see towards west and after that it was never seen again!

Birding in Pori was poor so after all I left towards Parikkala where I was after 10 p.m. It had been crazy 1.5 day but I had got 2 new Finnish-ticks!

On the 6th of November I did a traditional winter-bird count around Siikalahti. It was boring that I couldn’t have done it in the 1st day of November as I had been working. Then there would have been still hundreds of birds in Siikalahti, but now it was completely frozen – it was -7 degrees now! anyway already from our garden I found an Arctic Redpoll, saw a Goshawk and on the Lake Simpele I saw a Common Scoter and 3 Velvet Scoters so the beginning was very promising. In the harbor I saw 2 Barnacle Geese that looked like completely frozen, but they had disappeared after I had visited the spit.

Then it was very quiet until I was walking around Siikalahti where on the eastern side there are some very difficult places to walk as the vegetation is so tall and thick. But right on the worst place I noticed a family of 4 Whooper Swans flying with a Mute Swan! And only 200 meters later I heard a familiar call and whistled a little and soon there were 2 Marsh Tits watching me from 5 meters! It was of course a new species to Siikalahti! I hadn’t got my camera with me but I got great recordingswhile one of the birds was calling very actively.

The rest of the count was almost boring, I still heard a Snow Bunting and a White-backed Woodpecker and saw a Hazel Hen. finally I was back in our garden where a Grey-headed Woodpecker was on the top of a tree. Altogether I saw 34 species and only 454 birds which was the smaller number on my autumn-counts ever.

On the 7th of November I visited in Mantkanniemi where Hanna and her brother Miika and sister Elissa had relocated the Marsh Tits and there really were 2 birds. They were visiting a feeder and after some waiting one of the birds arrived and I also managed to get some pictures. Once I was back at my working place a Merlin flew over the parking place.

Lakes are really getting frozen and forecasts are promising cold weather for the future too, so there won’t be many many birds around Parikkala. On the 8th of November I saw only 3 Velvet Scoters and 17 Common Gulls on my lunch-hour even though I visited several places. Winter is coming!

J.A.

We had traditionally been abroad on our autumn holidays. I had been last 9 autumns birding mostly on different islands around Europe. Now we had just used too much money to a better car, so we had planned to go to some island in Finland. There are several islands with ringing-stations that we had never visited. Luckily we saw a message that Jurmo ringing-station needed a ringer and other observers to Hanna’s autumn-holiday week, so we booked ourselves to Jurmo.

On the 14th of October we started to drive towards Turku. We had planned to drive there via Sastamala, but the first Turkestan Shrike wasn’t seen during the whole day, so we drove straight to Naantali instead. We put up our tent a couple of kilometers from Sokerinmäki where had been one of the many Siberian Accentors of Finland for a couple of days.

On the 15th of October we woke up early and soon headed to Sokerinmäki. We were birding there for a couple of hours and there were more and more twitchers coming all the time but the Siberian Accentor wasn’t seen. We saw 140 Redpolls, 2 Arctic Redpolls, a Grey-headed Woodpecker, a Nutcracker, 22 Long-tailed Tits, 2 Chiffchaffs, 3 Wrens and 10 Dunnocks.

After all we gave up and continued to Raisio Raisionlahti, where with help of a local birder, we managed to see a late Spotted Crake. Also Gadwalls, Shovelers, Pochards, Grey Herons, Coots, Lapwings and so on were seen.

Then we headed to a big shopping center nearby and did all the rest shopping for the next week. And soon we were driving along Saaristotie. In a ferry-harbor to Nauvo we saw 2 Barn Swallows and finally we were in Pärnäinen harbor where we soon carried our stuff to Eivor boat. We also saw 2 Barn Swallows in Pärnäinen.

Eivor left at 4 p.m. and after watching empty sea from the deck for some time we headed inside and slept a little bit. We still visited the deck later a couple of times and saw a Long-tailed Duck, a Common Eider and a White-tailed Eagle.

Finally we were in Jurmo when the sun had already set. From the harbour we found old milk-trolleys where we packed most of our stuff and the rest we had to carry for the 1.5 kilometers to the bird-station. It was a long walk in the dark, but luckily there was only one road, so we managed to find the station easily. It was the only building in the small village with several tripods in the garden.

Inside there were 7 birders who had just started to count which species and how many they had seen during the day. So we just went to say hello to Petri Vainio, Timo K. Palomäki, Mikko Niemi, Kai Piikkilä, Soili Leveelahti, Lotta Lindholm and Jyrki Normaja. Then we went to put our tent up to the garden as the station would still be full for the next night. Once we were ready the others were still counting their birds, so soon we were ready to go to sleep.

On the 16th of October we woke up before 7 a.m. and there was a rush-hour in the kitchen. Luckily we had bought breakfast that we could eat in the tent.

Jyrki and Lotta had already opened the mist-nets near the bog and at 7:30 a.m. we were all ready to go out. Jyrki, Lotta and Hanna headed to the mist-nets, Mikko and Timo to the western side of the island and the rest of us to watch morning migration.

Only now when there was already a little bit light, I could see the surroundings of the station. There were quite a few building in the small village, one of them was an old wind-mill and there was a old, in 1846 built chapel with a small cemetery close to the pine-forest.

The daily routines for the birders staying in the station included 2 hours migration watching from the high rock in the middle of the island. It started from the sunrise and all migrating birds were counted. Ringers were supposed to catch birds 5 hours from the sunrise and if there were more ringers there were 13 mist-nets in 2 places, near the bog and in the pine-forest. Hanna was going to be a ringer during the week, but it was good to start getting familiar with the habits in this station with Jyrki on the first day. Then there were still walking route in the western side of the island that was supposed to walk every day and count all the local birds seen in the marked area and another one in the eastern side of the island that was supposed to count if possible. After these routines birding was free, in this time of the year it was possible to go to protected areas too. And all the birds around the island were counted outside the routines too.

The morning migrations was surprisingly good and we saw 150 unidentified and 36 grey geese that were too distant, 67 Brent Geese, 2 Scaups, 77 Long-tailed ducks, 37 Common Scoters, 6 Velvet Scoters, a Red-necked Grebe, a Black Guillemot, thrushes and different kind of passerines etc.

Once the migration-watch was stopped when Jyrki called that he had a Bullfinch with white on its tail-feathers on his hand. We of course went to see this so called Trumpeter or Komi Bullfinch that are rarely seen but more often heard in Finland during some autumns.

After 2 hours migration-watch we headed to walk the eastern count with Petri and Kai. There weren’t many birds but a Smew, a Whooper Swan, 6 Goldfinches and 3 Wood Larks were something a little bit better. Along the route I saw some archaeological stone-rings that are not known what they had been. We really walked fast and I had difficulties to follow the others , but there was a reason as after the walk Petri and Kai had to hurry to catch Eivor as they were leaving.

After a short visit to the station, I went to see the ringers that had caught a little bit more than 100 birds and better ones had been 2 Song Thrushes and a Blackcap.

In the afternoon I went to walk around the eastern part of the island again. I walked around every spit but only better bird I found was a late Northern Wheatear. Other birds I saw during the day were a couple of Bean Geese, a couple of flocks of White-fronted, Brent and Barnacle Geese, a Red-throated Diver, a Woodpigeon and a couple of Golden Plovers.

About at 5 p.m. it started to get very quiet and also darkish, so everyone headed to the station. We got a room by ourselves with Hanna and soon we had made the room as our home and were ready to prepare something to eat. In the evening all the birds were counted to the station-papers again and it was clear that there were much more birds on the western side of the island! Timo and Mikko had seen really good numbers of ducks and also some waders. But from the next morning we were going to do ringing with Hanna so it wasn’t sure that we could get to that part of the island at all.
About at 9 p.m. we were ready to go to sleep.

On the 17th of October we woke up at 6:30 and were soon opening the mist-nets in the pine-forest. Jyrki and Lotta were still ringing near the bog, but they were about to leave with Soili in the afternoon.

After the breakfast we were going back to mist-nets and started the first round. It was soon clear that there were lots of birds coming! Treecreepers, Goldcrests and Robins were hanging in every net and in the beginning we hadn’t got enough bird-bags. Luckily a Belgian-Finnish Matthias Deschrywere who was spending his holiday on the island came to help us and he even had some bird-bags with him. So in the beginning we were just emptying nets with Matthias and carrying birds to Hanna to ring and then we got empty bags from Hanna. so we were almost running around the forest for the first hours.

When we had almost the busiest time of the morning Jyrki called that we should hurry to the station, he made it clear that we really wanted to be there… So soon we were running towards the station and soon everyone was there. Jyrki had a surprise in one bird-bag! He went inside to make sure that the bird wasn’t escaping and we tried to see through the window what he had in the bag. Of course he showed only the tail of the bird first and I was already guessing what he had caught. Then he showed it and indeed, it was a Siberian Accentor!

At least Hanna and Lotta got Finnish-ticks and what a nice bird it was! Soon Jyrki had ringed and measured the bird and it was time to get some pictures! Hanna had to hurry back to the mist-nets, but I stayed still for a while and took some pictures of this amazing bird! We had been hoping to find one of these sibes that had been popping out around the Baltic Sea, but still it was amazing it really did fly to a mist-net in Jurmo when we were there! After I had taken many pictures from different angles I soon had to hurry after Hanna.

And it was still busy on the mist-nets, there were now more and more tits. Luckily Matthias was still helping us and we managed pretty well even though Hanna hadn’t been ringing this many birds ever before. And then we got our present too; there was a Yellow-browed Warbler in one of the mist-nets. Jyrki and Lotta came to twitch this pretty late individual and Hanna was surprised to see them coming as I hadn’t told her anything about a rare bird. So when Hanna started to get the bird from the bird-bag she got surprised how small bird there was and unfortunately it was a surprise it was much more active than other so small birds. So it somehow managed to escape from Hanna’s hand! Maybe we should also have gone inside the station to ring this bird… Well there was no time to worry as mist-nets were again full of birds, so we had to hurry back to work.

When Jyrki and Lotta had already closed their mist-nets, we had still many tits hanging on our nets. So with help of them we finally got all the nets empty and closed and at 2 p.m. Hanna had finally ringed all the birds. During the day we had ringed altogether 305 birds which 2/3 had been in pine-forest. The most common species had been a Goldcrest 84, Treecreeper 72, Great Tit 49, Robin 28, Blue Tit 22 and Wren 21. 18 Long-tailed Tits were ringed and other better birds were 3 Coal Tits, 1 Brambling and 4 Bullfinches which 2 of them were again eastern Bullfinches with white spots on their tail.

In the afternoon we walked the eastern route with Hanna but saw nothing better. But Jyrki, Lotta and Soili who were leaving managed to relocate the Siberian Accentor near the village! And while they were waiting for Eivor, Jyrki managed to see a Pallas’s Leaf Warbler briefly, but the bird disappeared too soon son no-one else saw it. I also biked to the harbor to twitch this rarity and searched it for some time with Sami Kiema who had just arrived to the island, but without luck. We didn’t find the Siberian Accentor either.

In the evening it took again a long time to count all the birds we had seen, but the most memorable moment was when a Siberian Accentor was added to the list. It was the 311th species seen in Jurmo!

On the 18th of October Hanna wanted to move to ring near the bog as there were a little bit more species coming from the mist-nets there.
After the breakfast we headed to the mist-nets and it really seemed that it would be a busy morning again. But after a couple of hours it started to get quiet and we were walking around empty nets. It seemed that the island had really got empty as we caught only 6 Treecreepers, 5 Goldcrest, 4 Robins, 1 Wren and so on.

So when Matthias joined us and Mikko, Timo and Sami were ending their migration-watch, I decided to follow Mikko and Sami to the western route while Timo headed to east. Hanna and Matthias would easily handle the ringing.

It was only now when I realised how huge Jurmo Island really is! It was a long walk to west before we started the counting-route. Already on the moorland we saw a couple of Black Grouses and once we reached the southern bay, we found lots of ducks and some Golden Plovers. And surprisingly I found 3 Shore Larks too! And soon we saw a Peregrine flying over us and it was followed soon by a young Goshawk. So the count had really started well!

We walked around the southern bay towards the western reef and saw a Jack Snipe, 6 Barnacle Geese, 16 Golden Plovers, 5 Grey Plovers, 7 Dunlins, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and so on. And once we reached the reef, we saw good numbers of ducks. There were plenty of Mallard, Wigeons, Teals, Pintails, Shovelers, Tufted Ducks, some Scaups and amazing numbers of Goldeneyes on the sea. Most of the birds were outside the daily counting area but they were counted anyway.

We stopped the count to visit the end of the reef and Heinäsaari but found nothing better even it was a long walk again. Of course when we were as far as possible Hanna called and told that they had mist-nets full of birds! Mikko called Timo and luckily he had already finished in the east and hurried to help Hanna and Matthias.

Once we were back on the route, we saw nothing better either anymore. But while walking along the north-eastern coastline towards the station, we visited the harbor and saw a Black Redstart briefly.

Once we were back in the station Hanna had arrived a little bit earlier. They had caught a bit more than 100 birds but most of them had been on the mist-nets in the same time! She had ringed 50 Long-tailed Tits, 21 Great Tits and so on.

Even though no big rarities had been found, the atmosphere was good in the evening. I had also got 2 new year-ticks.

On the 19th of October the day was already going routinely. It was again more busy on the mist-nets in the morning, then quiet for a couple of hours and then more busy again. At 1 p.m. we started to close the nets and after all we had caught only 75 birds. 22 Goldcrests, 20 Robins and 10 Treecreepers were the most numerous birds and better species were 2 Chiffchaffs, a Blackbird and a Blackcap. During the day we walked the eastern route with Sami but saw only the familiar Wood Larks.

In the afternoon we still visited harbor with Hanna and Sami but found only a couple of Chiffchaffs. The day was after all pretty lame even though we had once again walked a lot!

On the 20th of October it was again a bit better morning on the mist-nets. Robin 34, surprisingly Siskin 16, Great tit 14 and Goldcrest 12 were the most ringed species. Altogether 103 birds were ringed, which some of them Hanna ringed in the afternoon from the feeder of the station. During the morning we saw a couple of flocks of Stock Doves with some Woodpigeons and heard a Wood Lark and a Chiffchaff. During the ringing we visited alder forest but found no birds there, but it was nice to get some pictures there too.

After the ringing, I took a bike and cycled to the harbor from where I walked around the whole western side of the island! Mikko and Timo had been counting the counting-area already but I really tried to find something they had been missed. I did find a Ringed Plover and saw a single Purple Sandpiper from the end of Heinäsaari, but other birds were the same as counters had seen. Best ones were Golden and Grey Plovers, 3 Dunlins and a Lapland Bunting.

After all I had been walking 23 kilometers and I was exhausted once I biked back to the station. Anyway we still hadn’t found anything rare on the field…

On the morning of the 21st of October Mikko had left the island with Eivor very early. It was very windy so it wasn’t a surprise that the island was even quieter. 9 Bullfinches and 9 Long-tailed tits were caught, but altogether only 60 birds were ringed even though Hanna ringed again some tits in the garden too. But still there were some nice birds to study. Most of the small number of Redpolls we caught were clearly Lesser Redpolls, but some weren’t so easy to judge and one of the Long-tailed Tits had clearly genes from europaea -subspecies. We also still saw a couple of snakes along the mist-net path. During the stay we saw a couple of Vipers and a single Grass Snake.

During the morning we had some flocks of Parrot Crossbills and a couple of Common Crossbills and the first Snow Bunting of the season. After all we closed the mist-nets and started to walk towards the station. Then I saw a Peregrine flying over us and surprisingly it attacked towards a bigger raptor that was a young Golden Eagle! I called to Sami and luckily they managed to see the bird extremely well while they were counting the birds in the west.

During the day I walked the eastern route quickly and then headed also to west to see some more birds, but found nothing new. I walked again 22 kilometers during the day!

On the 22nd of October the weather was even stormier! So we didn’t put up the mist-nets at all. We were leaving after 11 a.m. anyway. Timo was going to stay on the island for a couple of days alone before the next group was arriving.

Sami was birding around the station while Timo left to make the routines. With Hanna we left early to the harbor with all our stuff. There we saw a Goshawk chasing a Woodcock over the sea! Then we headed to walk around the best parts of the western side as Hanna still hadn’t got possibility to see the area at all.

The wind was very hard but we managed to see Golden and Grey Plovers, lots of ducks, Common Snipes and so on. A flock of Barnacle Geese was seen on migration.

Finally Eivor left and together with Sami we stayed for some time on the deck but saw almost nothing. So after all I went to sleep inside.

In Pärnäinen we said goodbye to Sami and started to drive towards inland. We headed now to Sastamala where the Turkestan Shrike still was after all!

We ate in Huittinen and after a long drive put up the tent in some forest in Sastamala.

On the 23rd of October we wake up early and walked a little bit in the forest first and then drove to Vanerinranta. We met a local birder there and soon understood that the shrike was sleeping in a big pile of branches. Shrikes are not waking up very early so we just started to wait.

Another local birder arrived soon and he found a Hawk Owl from the wire behind us. It was my year-tick number 250.

Soon after that I found the Turkestan Shrike that was perching on the branches! It was showing extremely well for 5 minutes but then disappeared behind the pile. And of course after that many twitchers started to arrive!

We waited for an hour to bird to show up again but then decided to walk around the area a little bit with Hanna. And after a few minutes walk I found the shrike about 150 meters from the pile close to the lake. Luckily the bird stayed there and everyone managed to see it! Now we just hope that it will be confirmed as a Turkestan Shrike from the DNA-samples that were taken when the bird was ringed and it will be a split and a new species for the country soon.

It was again a long drive back to Parikkala where we finally were in the evening. But it had been a great week holiday in a new destination in Finland! I am sure this won’t be the last island we visit in Finland…

J.A.

This was my first late autumn in 9 years that I wasn’t going abroad for birding. I had been birding quite a lot and I started to feel that I had seen too many Barnacle Geese, I really needed something different. So I booked myself in to Luvia Säppi birding station for the weekend.

I was a long drive and I had to hurry to make it to Pori on Friday the 8th of October and catch the ferry at 6:30 p.m. On the harbor I met Petteri Mäkelä, Juha Sjöholm and Pasi Alanko who were going to stay on the island for longer and Matti Mäkelä, Teppo Lehtola and Sebastian Andrejef who were going to stay only for the weekend.

We carried our luggage to the boat and soon left to Säppi where we were about 30 minutes later. It was already getting dark, so we just carried our things to the station and started to plan which birds we were going to find on the next day. . Petteri mentioned a Booted Warbler which has never been seen in Satakunta, but I was hoping for anything else… On the station we met also Kari Mäntylä, who had been ringing on the station for a week already

On the 8th of October we woke up before 7 a.m. and after breakfast and wearing lots of clothes, we walked to do the morning migration watch, which starts at sunrise and lasts for 2 hours. It was quiet on the sea, just some flocks of Common Scoters, some Long-tailed Ducks, Velvet Scoters, Common Eiders, a big flock of Barnacle Goose looking geese (I was happy they were too far), 8 Razorbills, a couple of Red-throated Divers and a Brent Goose. Lots of corvids and passerines were also migrating and they included 3 Rooks, lots of tits and quite a few flocks of Parrot Crossbills and Bullfinches. Best local birds were 3 Purple Sandpipers, 3 Lapwings, 2 Black Guillemots and a Grey Heron.

Afer 2 hours we left to walk around the island. There were lots of tits and even Long-tailed Tits, Goldcrest and Chiffchaffs feeding on the ground and after some time we found a Yellow-browed Warbler. Later we still found some Dunnocks, Wren, Blackcaps and a Common Redstart.

Finally we arrived to Prakala where we once again started to check every single bush very carefully. While some of us were walking almost through the bushes others were on the both side watching if there are any birds moving. Once again one bird was moving in front of Pasi and Petteri managed to it first and immediately noticed there was something strange in it. The bird disappeared too soon and Petteri told me to watch to the bush where he had seen it. And then the bird flushed again and we could see it flying to the next bush. We could see a strange way of flying with almost hanging tail and the coloration which was pale sandy brown. We both immediately said: “It is an Iduna warbler”. I even continued that: “It wasn’t a Booted Warbler”.

We shouted to the others and soon were checking the bush where we had seen the bird landing and soon found it again. Pasi managed to get a couple of pictures of it and even though I managed to see it only very briefly, I could say that this bird was not a Syke’s Warbler. Then we checked Pasi’s pictures and we could easily see that it was an Olivaceous Warbler! We had found the 6th Olivaceous Warbler for Finland!

We put a mist-net up and tried to catch the bird but very soon gave up and decided not to disturb it anymore. I had also managed to get some really good pictures and we had all seen the bird extremely well. The bird had also started to call pretty much and it was lowering it’s tail a lot.

We know that there was the first group of twitchers coming after 1.5 hours, so we left the bird and went to check a couple of other places. We found another Yellow-browed Warbler but soon walked back to Prakala just when the boat was arriving to harbor. When we were closing to the bushes, we could already hear the bird calling and soon the whole group of mostly local twitchers saw the bird too.

When the twitchers left we walked back to the station and counted the birds we had seen during the day. We had seen 73 species and some of the best numbers were 200 Goldcrests, 402 Long-tailed Tits, 335 Great Tits, 250 Blue Tits, 288 Redpolls, 178 Parrot Crossbills and 351 Bullfinches.

The rest of the evening we were celebrating! But after all we were all thinking that after we had found the Olivaceous Warbler, we hadn’t had time to check some of the best areas of the island and there were more rarities to find. So we went to sleep surprisingly earl.

On the 9th of October we woke up before 7 again and this time we went to do the morning migration-watch to Prakala. There were 7 boats of twitchers coming so we wanted to see if the bird was still there and the twitching was going smoothly.

The first group of twitchers was already in Prakala when we got there and luckily soon the bird was calling and also seen very well again. Even Pekka Komi got a lifer and he is now number 1 twitcher in Finland. Most of the other top-10 twitchers had seen the only twitchable bird in Lemland Lågskär in 1996.

There was again quiet on the sea but even more tits and Parrot Crossbills were on the move. The Olivaceous Warbler stayed well visible until a couple of photographers pushed it almost to the sea and then we had to shout them to get further from the bird. And soon the bird was again on the same bushes where it had been almost all the time. One Purple Sandpiper was on the islet again and all the twitchers managed to see it too.

Soon arrived the second boat full of twitchers and after 9 a.m. the third. Everyone saw the bird easily, so we continued to walk around the island again. We decided to go to the places where we hadn’t been at all on the previous day.

But we didn’t find much. Tits and Parrot Crossbills were on the sky all the time but only better birds we saw were a Grey Plover, 3 Blackcaps and 2 Arctic Redpolls. After all during the whole day 305 Long-tailed, 14 Willow, 21 Coal, 1106 Blue and 237 Great Tits, 165 Bullfinches and even 508 Parrot Crossbills were seen!

After all we were back in harbor and we weekend visitors had to go to pack our things. At 3 p.m. we said goodbye to the friends who still stayed on the island and left back towards Pori by boat which had just arrived with the last and 7th group of twitchers.

Sampsa Cairenius was coming with me so I didn’t have to drive alone. In Pirkkala we twitched a tame Turtle Dove that we could photograph from 2 meters. I dropped Sampsa to Joutseno and finally after 10 p.m. I was back in Parikkala.

It had been really amazing weekend in Säppi! And I had got exactly what I had wanted – amazing self-found lifer! This was also the 300th story on this caligata blog – maybe I should change the name to pallida?

And Olivaceous Warbler stayed in Säppi until Tuesday evening. Then it was also caught and ringed. On Wednesday morning it wasn’t found anymore. I wonder where it continued?

J.A.

On Tuesday evening on the 4th of October I got a message that a Siberian Accentor had been found only 130 kilometers from Parikkala in Savitaipale. But the message came so late that it was almost dark outside, so I had to hope the bird stays at least for the next afternoon as I had to go to work next morning. There had been one wintering Siberian Accentor in Finland in winter 1998-99 but since that all the records had been from only one day, so I didn’t expect this bird to stay either.

I had seen Siberian Accentors on our trip to Polar Ural in summer, but still I really wanted to get a Finnish-tick and of course a South Karelia-tick. So on the morning of 5th of October I was checking if there were any news about the bird while I was working. And surprisingly it was first seen only by one twitcher and heard by the others, but then it was first seen very well on the top f a tree but then seen flying high towards south, as far as it was possible to follow… So I could forget my twitching plans…

But luckily some twitchers stayed on the place and it was heard again after 20 minutes and finally also seen again! And then there were new messages coming about every 1.5 hours and they all had the same message; the bird was extremely difficult to see!

So I had to quit my working day an hour early so I could stay in Savitaipale for long enough before it gets dark. On the way I picked up Sampsa Cairenius who had already seen the bird, but wanted to get pictures too. It was good to have him with me, as he knew the place and how the bird had been acting.

Finally we parked to the sewage-ponds of Peijonsuo and soon found about 15 twitchers that seemed to be looking to a bush just in front of them. I could see that they were actually just trying to see the bird. So I walked to my old friend Olavi Kemppainen who had been there already from early morning and he told me where the bird had just been seen. And soon I got instructions where another birder was seeing the bird – and there it was a stunning Siberian Accentor! It was showing extremely well under very dense vegetation, so I couldn’t get any pictures. Most of the birders still didn’t see it and I heard it hadn’t been seen at all for 1.5 hours! When everyone was moving and trying to see to the small area, where the bird was, it moved under the vegetation again. But soon it jumped to a small willow and was seen extremely well but again flushed too soon and flew pretty far inside the bush.

One of the twitchers decided to go around the bush and surprisingly found the bird along a small track where it was finally seen extremely well for about 5 minutes! Now everyone saw it well and we even managed to get really good pictures! But soon it disappeared to the vegetation again and after some searching it was found from the ordinary place again. We still saw it a couple of times but after all we were happy to start driving back to home.

J.A.