Pleschanka!
On the 26th of September we started the weekend like son many times and went ringing to Kukonkanta. We started again a half an hour before sun was rising and continued as long as there were any birds on the mist-nets, but it seems that this year this time is earlier. So we stopped at 11 a.m. and had got 4 Blue and 12 Great Tits, a Goldcrest, a Wren, 7 Robins, a Bluethroat, 3 Dunnocks, a Meadow Pipit, a Redpoll, 3 Reed Buntings and a Eurasian Nuthatch which seemed to be some kind of hybrid between asiatica and europaea subspecies. While ringing we saw a Goshawk, a Hen Harrier, a couple of Linnets and even 70 Goldfinches. Some hundreds of Barnacle Geese were flying here and there.
In the evening we headed to fields again and we had planned to make a longer trip but it was raining all the time. So we checked a couple of fields nearby and caught a Jack Snipe (saw also another one), a Great Snipe which was a control and saw another birds with a ring too, 10 Woodcocks, a Fieldfare, a Skylark and a couple of Meadow Pipits. We also saw again a couple of Long-eared Owls.
It kept on raining on Sunday the 27th morning too and after that the weather was still stormy. So we didn’t hurry and left only at 3 p.m. to Saari. We decided to begin in Akanvaara Tetrisuo where is a good bare fallow field. When we stopped we were talking that we could find an Isabelline Wheatear. I started to put my scope up and Hanna started scanning the fields with her binoculars and almost immediately she saw that there is a wheatear. I soon found it with my scope and it really looked good, nothing like an Isabelline Wheatear but a Pied Wheatear! The bird was in very bad light so immediately we knew that we had to get closer to see it better and to get some pictures. I parked our car better but it wasn’t enough for some stupid hunters that passed us and shouted like maniacs that our car was on their way even thought it really wasn’t. Meanwhile we had lost our bird but we soon started to walk towards the place where it had been along a ditch.
Soon we found out that there were several Northern Wheatears too (5 of them) flying here and there but found our target-bird that was moving with them. They were extremely shy and were flying long distances, even to the other side of the field. So I thought that it was better if we were on opposite sides of the field with Hanna. Once I got to the other side the bird was again on the ordinary place closer to Hanna. So I started walking back again. Anyway we had seen the bird so well now that once I got to our car, I took my phone that I had forgotten there and sent the news out about this young male Pied Wheatear.
Now we were so that the bird was between us and hoped to get pictures that we still hadn’t got. But soon it moved closer to Tetrisuontie-road but again to really bd light. I tried to get closer carefully and managed to push the bird little bit so that it finally landed to a place that was completely in shadow. Then I got some pictures before it flew again back to its favorite place. Hanna still tried to get some pictures but after all we decided to leave the bird be.
Soon the first twitchers arrived and the bird surprisingly started to stay on the field but on a narrow ditch and was very long times invisible. Some more twitchers arrived and the first ones left already before the sun started to set. Then the birds activated again stayed very well visible until it was so dark that we all decided to leave.
This was the second Pied Wheatear ever for South Karelia; after a stunning male in Lappeenranta in June 2004 which we also twitched. For us it was the third ever in Finland and second young bird after a twitched bird in Hollola in 2015.
On the next day, the 2th of September Minna Terävä still saw the Pied Wheatear after a couple of hours searching. It was moving with 2 Northern Wheatears. But after that nobody else saw it even thought there were several twitchers, some from Helsinki.
We had duck-counts to do after work-day so we couldn’t visit Saari at all. Hanna saw 8 Gadwalls and 3 Pochards from the tower and I saw a flock of 115 Common Mergansers with 2 Red-breasted Mergansers. Only 1 Great Egret was seen and I found a recently died Cormorant. I never made it to the bird-tower where we usually count birds together as there are so many as I found a Great Grey Owl which I of course had to try to photograph. I managed to get pictures of one mouse-hunt before I had to continue counts. I also messaged to wheatear-twitchers about this owl as I hoped that they wouldn’t have to leave Parikkala empty-handed. The first 2 twitchers that arrived managed to see it but then it moved inside the forest and unfortunately the rest of twitchers didn’t see it.
J.A.