Little Bustard
After a weekend trip to Tauvo I was at work on Monday when I got a phone-call that there was a Little Bustard in Imatra. The birders had some problems with the land-owner but after all they told me to put the news out to beeper. I had to be at work until 3:30 p.m. and after that I had a massage. So I would have been free to go twitching after that but I had somehow managed to lost my car-keys and the second key wasn’t somehow working – I could open the doors but the lock and the first key had probably worn so much that this key just didn’t work. Luckily I got a message from a Dutch birder Boy Possen who is living in Punkaharju where he asked if there really was a Little Bustard in Imatra. I told that yes there was – can I get a ride…
So after the massage we were driving towards Imatra. Once we parked our car to Saunasuo we got the news that the bird had just moved a kilometer further to a long field. So soon with the finder Jorma Liesma and Boy we moved closer to the bird along one road while the rest of twitchers stayed on the place where they could see the whole field.
A Hen Harrier was flying around the fields but it didn’t flush the bustard. So after the bird had been missing for 2 hours, I started to plan a walk to the field. Soon I sent a message that after 30 minutes at 6:30 p.m. we would walk to the field and try to flush the bird. This was the way to make sure that everyone that was still on their way to Imatra could call me to wait if they couldn’t get there in time. Because of I didn’t get any calls at 6:30 we, 8 birders, were in our positions on the field and started to walk towards the place where the bird had been seen to land.
After some hundreds of meters walk the Little Bustard finally flushed and it flew a couple of rounds on the sky and then dropped down to a green field about 1 kilometer from us. Luckily everyone managed to see the bird well, we probably much better than the rest that were watching from the road.
We had a long walk back to our cars but soon we were checking the field where we had seen the bird landing. Then arrived the only twitcher that came too late. Unfortunately he hadn’t called – we could have waited this 15 minutes, but not more as it started to get dark. Soon the fog surrounded the fields and we decided to drive back to Parikkala.
So after all the day had ended well! The car-keys weren’t found but I the second key started to work after all. And I had got a really good South-Karelia tick!
J.A.