. . Lintuharrastajan päiväkirja Birders diary . .

At weekend from 15th to 17th of March we were in Ähtäri. Hanna is making all paintings and info-texts to the zoo so we met some people there and planned what else than paintings should be done and which paintings should be done before the opening of the new main building where would be Hanna’s expedition too.

On the way to Ähtäri we stopped to see a Hawk Owl in Pieksämäki Inkilänkylä and it was found very easily. There were plenty of voles on the field and we saw the owl catching 2 voles in 5 minutes.

After a long drive to west we finally where in Ähtäri where we had a huge hut for us where we had sauna before we went to sleep.

On Saturday morning it was freezing cold (-27 degrees) but luckily it soon got warmer and sun was shining from the blue sky. We met the zoo people and walked around the zoo and checked what should be done to many building around the park. Of course we saw many animals too. At 11 o’clock we met some journalists next to a Wolverine fencing. At 12 o’clock we continued to the Bear cage where Bears got out for the first time after their long winter sleep.

In the afternoon we were walking around the park with Hanna and in the evening we met the intendant of the zoo again and went to eat and discuss about what to do for the zoo in the future. Later we just relaxed in our huge hut and had sauna before going to sleep.

On Sunday it was cold again and Wolves were howling in the zoo. After a good breakfast in the hotel we went to Zoo again and walked and photographed animals for an hour. It was good to be in the zoo before it was opened for the visitors – many animals were very active.

During the day we visited a huge Tuuri shopping center before started a long drive back to home. On the way we stopped in Äänekoski Piilolanniemi where we tried to see an overwintering Great Crested Grebe but it was hiding too well. We did see the first Common Buzzard for Center Finland this year. Then we managed to meet my brother Riku and his family in Varkaus as they were driving from Mikkeli to Oulu.

It was about 8 p.m. when we noticed that there were very beautiful northern lights on the sky! We stopped to photograph them in Punkaharju but Hanna didn’t have a good lens with her. So we drove home and picked up a tripod and the lens and continued to Siikalahti to photograph more northern lights. Before 10 p.m. the sky faded and we drove to home.

On the 21st of March in the evening at 8 p.m. Hanna decided to go out to the shore to see if she could find Comet PanSTARRS from the western sky. She found it and called me to see it too. This comet is so far it was almost impossible to find with bare eyes but with a scope it was nice. Hanna took pictures with her camera and I tried to digiscope it too.

J.A.

Sorry, this entry is only available in suomi.

On the 1st of March I went to see the Corn Bunting again. The weather was really bad and it was getting colder but luckily I managed to see the bird easily. The bird that I had found 4 weeks earlier together with Sampsa Cairenius had been very popular, there had been almost 200 twitchers during February and many were coming again to see it in March. Also the same Wood Pigeon was still there in Pätilä.

We also visited Joutseno Kukkuroinmäki rubbish tip where we counted 180 Ravens, 800 Jackdaws, 200 Hooded Crows, 90 Yellowhammers and also saw a Starling. Like almost every rubbish tip in Finland, it is not ok to go inside the gates of Kukkuroinmäki. Only a couple of birders have got a permit to do bird-counts there. Then we drove to Imatra where on a previous day had been almost 200 Herring Gulls and 5 Great Black-backed Gulls but now the weather had changed radically and we found only 2 Great Black-backed Gulls and one Herring Gull! A male Smew was still there with many Goldeneyes.

On the 2nd on March I checked briefly Kokkolanjoki in Simpele and saw 16 Whooper Swans, a Goldeneye and 2 Dippers but a Little Grebe was hiding somewhere.

Then on the 3rd of March I did a winterbird-count again. I skiid around Siikalahti and counted 13 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, 4 Willow Tits, a Coal Tit, 20 Blue Tits, 60 Great Tits, 2 Jays, 19 Magpies, 23 Hooded Crows, 9 Ravens, 14 House Sparrows, 40 Tree Sparrows, 23 Green Finches, 4 Redpolls, 2 Bullfinches, 2 Common Crossbills and 32 Yellowhammers. Also 4 Red Squirrels and fresh footprints of Lynx were seen.

J.A.

On Thursday 21st of February, together with Hanna and my good friends Juha and Hannu Honkanen, we left to drive towards south at 6 p.m. It was a long drive to Espoo where I dropped the brothers and then we continued to Kirkkonummi to my parents.

On thw 22nd of February we woke up early and before 7 a.m. we were driving towards Espoo again. We picked up Juha, Hannu and also Heikki Kauppinen and continued to Helsinki-Vantaa airport. There we found the rest of our group Kari Huotilainen and Antti Heinonen – so we had almost the same group than in autumn 2010 in Barcelona.

Our flight to Paris left at 8:50 a.m. and I managed to sleep most of the flight. At 11:50 a.m. we landed to Orly airport and there we saw the first better bird of the trip, a Kestrel. Soon we took a automatic train to Antony metro-station from where we continued changing 3 times to Porte de St-Cloud. There we had only a short walk to our hotel Résidence Mercure Le Scénario. Our roomes weren’t ready yet but after we had eaten delicious burger meals we could leave our luggage to our rooms.

With Hanna we decided to walk to Eiffel tower along River Seine but there weren’t many birds to see, Black-headed and Yellow-legged Gulls, Mallards, some Cormorants, Wood and Rock Pigeons, Carrion Crows, Starlings and House Sparrows. Also some Blackbirds, Magpies and 2 Grey Wagtails were seen.

Soon we could see Eiffel tower rising up behind the buildings and we of course continued walking towards it. When we were walking over the river we could see that the rest of our group had just arrived to the bridge too. They had taken taxi to get there. We of course took lots of pictures and then decided to get up to the tower too. There was a long queue and the weather was really freezing cold but after a half an hour we finally got to the stairs and climbed up to the second level of the tower. It was a long climb, the tower really was huge – 18 000 iron parts and 2.5 million knobs had been used to build it.

From the second floor we then bought the tickets to an elevator to get to the highest level which was 276 metres high – the highest point of the tower was 324 metres. The views were stunning and even though it was really bad wind and extremely cold we took lots of pictures. The sun had already set down so the city was full of lights!

We were really freezing when we got down from the tower but anyway we had to take more pictures of the tower which was now full of lights. Then we took a taxi back to our hotel where we needed to get a hot shower to get warm. We were really tired so we went to sleep early while the rest of our group went to see Paris nightlife.

On the 23rd of February before 9 a.m. we were walking towards the metro-station. On the way we heard some Siskins and saw some Greenfinches. We changed once and finally got to Châteae-Rouge metro-station from where we walked towards the highest hill of Paris, Montmartre. We climbed up and photographed a beautiful Sacré-Cœur temple. Then we went to Place du Tertre where we saw many painters at work. Only new bird-species there were Great and Blue Tits and Chaffinches. Then we walked down to the shopping streets where the shops were just opening.

Next 1.5 hours Hanna was shopping in tissue and handicraft shops, then we of course went to see famous Moulin Rouge before taking a metro to Champs-Élysées. There we go to the street right next to Arc de Triomphe which was much bigger than we had expected, even 51 metres high. We both thought it looked like Gaada Stack on Foula, Shetland.

Then we walked along Champs-Élysées and did some shopping but mostly just watched through the windows of the really expensive shops. We passed Grand and Petit Palaice, Place de la Concorde, Louvre, walked through some parks where we saw a Song Thrush and heard a Short-toed Treecreeper and finally walked over Seine to Île de la Cité where we walked to see famous Nodre Damen cathedral. There were far too many tourists so we decided not to get inside the cathedral but of course took plenty of pictures outside. We walked around the cathedral to a bridge which was full of locks that were locked there bu thousands of loving couples. There we heard a White Wagtail flying over us. Then we continued to Île Saint-Louis where we did some more shopping before we walked along Seine to a metro-station and took a metro back to our hotel.

It wasn’t very late yet but we were extremely tired after about 13 kilometres walking. So we ate very bad beefs on the hotel restaurant and then went to sleep early. The rest of our group had been sleeping late after their visit to the bars next to Moulin Rouge and even though they had also been walking a lot in the city during the afternoon, they left to check the clubs along Seine.

24th of February we were out already before 8 a.m. heard a Dunnock calling and took a metro to Louvre. In Musée du Louvre we went to a queue where was only about 10 people before us. While waiting for the museum to open we of course photographed the underside of the glass-pyramide and finally at 9 a.m. the museum opened and we got in to buy the tickets.

We started from the Egyptian art section which was huge, it was in several floors and many corridors and countless rooms. Then we checked some parts of European and Greek arts before headed to the main floor to see the most famous European pieces of art that included Nike of Samothraki, Mona Lisa and many other famous paintings and statues. Then we still walked through African and Japanese sections before we decided to give up – we weren’t going to see all 30 000 pieces of art in this 60 000m² big museum.

Anyway we hadn’t got enough of museums yet so we walked over Seine where we saw again plenty of Black-headed and Yellow-legged Gulls but also a Lesser Black-backed Gull and continued to Musée d’Orsay. We had to queue for a half an hour to get inside this huge museum that was in an old railway-station. There we walked through all 3 floors and saw numerous pieces of arts from 1800 and 1900 century. In 1.5 hours we got familiar with many genres and saw paintings from many famous names like Manet, Gauguin, van Gogh, Degas, Monet and Renoir.

But then we had walked too much and we had to give up. After we had sat down for a few minutes we walked out and went to see a huge Invalides church with beautiful dome and then continued towards Eiffel tower, under it and over the river to Trocadéro, where we still queued to a big aquarium that had been built to 1878 World Exposition. A part of our group came there too but inside it was far too crowded and there were too many children so it was very noisy! So we checked all the aquariums pretty fast and soon were going back towards our hotel by metro.

Our hotel yard was full of policemen as the football team Olympique Marseille had came to spend some hours to the same hotel where we were staying. When we got into our rooms 7 more police-cars and about 20 more policemen arrived.

At 7 p.m. we left to walk towards the stadium Parc des Princes which was only 1 kilometre from our hotel. The tickets to this Classico game had been very expensive so Hanna had decided to stay at hotel where she saw team OM leaving the hotel soon. Of course she watched part of the game from television. The first time the tickets were checked already hundreds of metres before the stadium. And soon there were even bigger queues in front of us. It was really difficult to get into the stadium and we had no idea if we were on the right side of it at all. Luckily we managed to get through the third huge mass of people too and found out that we were exactly where we had hoped to be. After a quick shopping in PSG store we climbed up to the stand. Soon the teams came to the field and started the warm-up. The atmosphere was great, people were singing and shouting and several bombs were exploding. Soon everything was ready for the kick-off! As it was the biggest game in French league and even the first match for PSG’s latest huge acquisition David Beckham, there was another huge star making the opening kick for the game – Ronaldo (that real one from Brazil).

At 9 p.m. the game finally started. And after 1 minute PSG had their first good attempt but Ezequel Lavezzi’s shot hit the post. Then on 11th minute the stadium exploded when Lucas kicked the ball to the goal – the ball changed direction from 2 OM players. Marseille started to play better but the half-time result was 1 to 0.

The second half started with OM domination but also PSG got some really good chances that Lavezzi or Zlatan Ibrahimović somehow managed to screw up. PSG’s goalie Salvatore Sirigu was playing well and especially André-Pierre Gignac’s stunning scissor kick was very close to score. On the 76th minute PSG finally made their first changes and Chantôme Clément and David Beckham got in! Beckham was playing in very defensive role, but he really gave good passes to his team-members. On the 90th minute Beckham played the ball to Jérémy Ménez who kicked the ball towards the goal and somehow Zlatan, who had played maybe one of his worst games ever, managed to lead the ball in, 2 to 0.

The overtime went quickly while the crowd was singing and soon we were trying to get out from the stadium. It wasn’t much easier than getting in but finally we were walking back to our hotel. There we decided to go straight to sleep, it was almost midnight anyway.

On the 25th of February we had a good breakfast in the hotel and then took a taxi to Orly airport. There was a huge traffic-jam but luckily we got to the airport in less than 45 minutes. There we did some shopping and finally at 11:30 a.m. our flight left – flocks of Lapwings were seen from the plane. I managed to sleep most of the time again and we landed to Helsinki-Vantaa about at 4 p.m. There we said goodbye to Heikki, Kari and Antti and started a long way back to Parikkala. We picked up Hannu’s dog on the way and were finally at home before 9 p.m. We had really had good time in Paris, even though we hadn’t been birding at all – only 24 species of birds had been seen.

J.A.

February is always the quietest time of the year for birding. And if some place is quiet, Parikkala is! So I didn’t do much birding; it was dark when I went to work and when I got away from work anyway. Then I had too many other things to do at weekends.

On the 4th of February I had to visit Lappeenranta hospital where a doctor checked my ear for the first time after the surgery. After 1 p.m. I was free to go birding and I visited Pappilanniemi where I didn’t see a Nuthatch and Tirilä where I didn’t see any Hawfinches. So I decided to call to Sampsa Cairenius and ask him to go with me to Joutseno Pätilä where had been thousands of Yellowhammers. Luckily Sampsa was free to join me as I didn’t have my scope with me.

In Pätilä I parked to the field road and we continued to walk to the middle of the field. Soon I noticed a bird perched on a top of a dead tree behind the fields and with scope we could identify it as a Merlin! And soon we found huge flocks of Yellowhammers! There had been even 500 birds in the best days but also now there were at least 1500 or 2000 of them.

After we had checked the flocks pretty well we decided to continue to check some of the closest feeders. We found more Yellowhammers and a Chaffinch but nothing else. In Hyvättilä we found also 500 Yellowhammers but in Konnunsuo we saw no birds at all. It was already getting dark when we decided to drive back to Pätilä where almost all Yellowhammers had already gone. Some small flocks were still flying towards the buildings to roost. Then suddenly we heard a powerful “tick” -calls, a little bit like a Quail but clearly a bunting anyway. We both concentrated to listen and when the bird was already pretty far we tried to find it from the sky but we never saw it. It had clearly been a Corn Bunting! I had heard many Corn Bunting abroad and Sampsa had still a couple of weeks ago heard them in Germany. I had a cd of birds flight calls on my car and we immediately compared the call to the Corn Bunting calls and it had been exactly similar! We decided to put the news out and hope that someone else than Sampsa would be there early on the next morning too.

On Tuesday Sampsa was checking all the buntings again but the weather was windy and cold and he counted 2500 Yellowhammers, 30 Chaffinches, a Brambling, a Wood Pigeon and a Merlin again. On Wednesday there was probably nobody in Pätilä but on Thursday Sampsa was there again and in the afternoon he finally found the Corn Bunting! Sampsa found it from the call again but this time it was perched in a bush with many Yellowhammers. So Sampsa managed to digiscope it too. Soon the bird flushed and flew to the feeders. On these days I was of course working but in Kangaskylä I saw a Black Woodpecker and a Great Grey Shrike.

On Friday I left from work at mid-day and as I was going to Helsinki, I drove straight to Joutseno, picked up Sampsa again and then we continued to Pätilä. There were already 2 birders searching for the bunting but they hadn’t seen anything better. Soon we found the Wood Pigeon which actually was the first ever in mid-winter in South Karelia! Then the Merlin came to chase the Yellowhammers which were again a couple of thousand there. After some time we decided to check the feeders again but found only more Yellowhammers and 5 Chaffinches. So soon we drove back to the fields.

After a couple of hours two twitchers came from the western coast (another one of them was InvicibleManfromCorvo) and they had hardly got out from the car when Sampsa shouted that he had the Corn Bunting in his scope! He gave us all to see the bird through his scope and it was showing pretty well. But it was really difficult to tell where it really was as the tree was absolutely full of Yellowhammers! Luckily I managed to find it pretty soon a I got a couple of pictures and a short video before it left with whole flock to the field. I was really feeling cold already so I decided to continued my long drive to Kirkkonummi. The other birders still stayed there but the Corn Bunting wasn’t seen again. But on the next days there were more and more twitchers going to Pätilä and at least most of the twitchers managed to see the Corn Bunting again. Only bird I saw was an Eagle Owl that I saw in Lappeenranta on my way back home from Helsinki.

J.A.

On the 11th of January I visited Rautjärvi Simpele Kokkolanjoki where I saw in a half an hour a Dipper, 2 Whooper Swans, 9 Mallards, 2 Common Crossbills and then after some searching also a Little Grebe. On the 13th day we visited Siikalahti with Hanna. We even walked until the bird-tower even there was lots of snow. Of course there was almost no birds, but then along Raikantie we saw a White-backed and a Grey-headed Woodpecker. Later we tried to twitch a Great Grey Owl that Matti Lötjönen had deen but it was already gone.

On the 16th of January I drove once again to Kirkkonummi. On the next 2 days I was studying in Helsinki, but in the afternoons I had a couple of hours time for twitching. On the 17th day I went to Espoo Soukanlahti where I didn’t see gulls that I had hoped but 9 White-tailed Eagles and a Sparrowhawk. Then I still managed to twitch the same Black-throated Thrush that I had seen during Christmas in Eestinmalmi. It was now much more difficult but after an hour waiting it finally came to a tree next to a feeder. These 2 days were extremely cold but anyway on the 18th day I managed to twitch a Shore Lark in Helsinki Jätkäsaari.

On the 19th of January we had a traditional Imatra city bird-counting day. 9 teams had their own areas where they were counting every single land-bird. The rules were that a team got one point of each species and then the team who saw most of any species got 3 points, second 2 and third 1 point. Then teams who saw most species and most birds got also 3, 2 and 1 points.

With Kari Kärkkäinen we got a good area Imatra Meltola. I picked up Kari before 9 a.m. and on Kari’s feeders we saw a White-backed and a Grey-headed woodpecker. Then we drove to our area and the first bird we saw was a Sparrowhawk. We started on the best corner of our area and Kari started to walk along different roads than I did. It was freezing cold – almost -30 degrees! But luckily sun was shining so we could survive. There weren’t very many tits but lots of Redpolls, Bullfinches, Greenfinches and Great Spotted woodpeckers. I saw even 5 Great Spotted Woodpeckers fighting! Pretty soon we both saw a couple of Arctic Redpolls and I found a White-backed Woodpecker. So our start has been good!

When I had counted birds of the best area I decided to walk to a sewage works nearby but on the way I saw almost no birds at all. Luckily some Common Crossbills and a Pygmy Owl were good ones. And meanwhile Kari was having a good time – he saw 6 Fieldfares, a Blackbird, 15 Long-tailed Tits, a Grey-headed Woodpecker, 2 Waxwings and much more tits than I did.

After all we walked along almost every road in our area until 3 p.m. but nothing really good was found. Kari saw a Crested Tit and I saw a Dipper. After all we had seen a Sparrowhawk, a Pygmy Owl, 50 Great Spotted woodpeckers, a White-backed Woodpecker, a Grey-headed Woodpecker, 41 Rock Doves, a Dipper, 2 Waxwings, 6 Willow Tits, 7 Coal Tits, a Crested Tit, 117 Blue tits, 270 Great Tits, 15 Long-tailed tits, 6 Fieldfares, a Blackbird, 2 Chaffinches, 190 Greenfinches, 69 Siskins, 13 Goldfinches, 450 Redpolls, 5 Arctic Redpolls, 121 Bullfinches, 11 Common Crossbills, 6 Jays, 72 Magpies, 35 Hooded Crows, 6 Ravens, 193 Tree Sparrows and 195 Yellowhammers. We didn’t see a single House Sparrow or Jackdaw!

The results were given in the evening and it was not a big surprise that we had got clearly most points. We had also seen third most species and 2nd most birds. Then we watched lots of pictures and had fun until 11 p.m. We had once again had a great day and all the winterbirds in Imatra had been counted already 8th year in a raw.

Altogether all teams had seen record numbers of several species: 4082 Redpolls, 293 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, 17 Arctic Redpolls, 446 Siskins, 590 Bullfinches and 94 Common Crossbills. Also 8 Nuthatches and 4 Merlins were records and a Nutcracker was seen first time ever. Maybe because of the cold morning the numbers of tits weren’t very big. And once again there weren’t many berry-eaters. Then Rock Dove numbers have been decreasing very fast – only 96 birds were seen. 45 land-bird species and 14081 birds were seen which also was a new record.

On the 25th of January I travelled to Kirkkonummi again. During the weekend I was prticipating to a Finnish Twitcher’s Association (Bongariliitto) weekend with the rest of the decicion-makers of the association. I travelled by train as I was too tired to drive a long way again.

On the 26th day Heikki Vasamies picked me up from Kirkkonummi and with him and Ina-Sabrina Tirri we drove to Tammisaari where we made some birding stops as we had still time before the meeting. We started in Ramsholmen where we saw a White-backed Woodpecker, a Pheasant, some Treecreepers and lots of already very active Great Spotted Woodpeckers. Next we continued by a small ferry to Torsö where we twitched a Little Grebe that was overwintering in a small canal.

At midday we were in Hanko Tvärminne where after a lunch we started the meeting. We had lots of decicions to make and even more to discuss but at 6 p.m. first women went to sauna and then an hour later we stopped the meeting and went to sauna. After all we had a great time until midnight when we finally went to sleep.

On the 27th day we woke up about at 8 a.m. and less than an hour later we all went out to participate to the biggest birdwatching event of Finland – Garden twitch! We started with Petteri Mäkelä from the garden but there were almost no birds at all. From sauna we saw some open water and some gulls and at least one duck but we had no scope with us. Luckily we found almost the rest of our group soon and together we walked even a little bit closer to watch to the open sea. There were lots of gulls moving all the time and after a couple of minutes Petteri noticed a Glauscous Gull flying almost over us – Great! After all we saw lots of Common and Herring Gulls, some Great Black-backed Gulls, a Whooper Swan, 7 Mallards and some Goldeneyes. Of course also some common passerines were seen. And then 3 minutes before the 1 hour time was ending a nice adult White-tailed Eagle flew over us.

Then it was time to continue our meeting again and we still had lots of things to do. After all we had to stop the meeting at midday even though there were still some things to talk. After a lunch we left birding again with Heikki and Ina-Sabrina. We drove to Hanko where we seawatched for some time in extremely hard wind but managed to see some Mute and Whooper Swans, 2 Long-tailed Ducks, a Velvet Scoter and a Black-headed Gull. We still stopped a couple of times in a city but after all we had to continue towards Kirkkonummi where Heikki dropped us to the railway-station and Ina-Sabrina continued to Turku and I started a long way back home. I was finally at home at 9:45 p.m.

J.A.