Some owls again
Once we were back from Morocco (trip report here) Hanna stayed a couple of days in Helsinki. On Monday 11th of June after work I left together with Rolf Mortensen and Harri Partanen to ring the rest of our owl nestlings. First we drove to Siikalahti where we surprisingly found mom lying on tiny small nestlings. They were of course too small to be ringed yet.
I thought that the same situation would probably be on the next nestboxes too but anyway we continued to Kolmikanta where we found Tengmalm’s Owl mom owl lying over 2 small nestlings. I already told to Harri and “rolle” that we could leave the furthest nestbox for later but they wanted to go to check it too. So we drove to Melkoniemi forests and found one more Pygmy Owl from the nest with tiny chicks.
We walked a little in the forest and tried to find Siberian Jays that were breeding close, but they didn’t show up. A Chiffchaff and a Greenish Warbler were singing on the spruces so after all the visit was worthy anyway.
On the 20th of June we went to check how big are the Tengmalm’s Owls now. It was a surprice they were already ready to br ringed. The smallest was much smaller than 2 bigger ones but anyway big enough. We also went to check if Pygmy Owls were also big enough but they still need to grow some days. The breeding of owls is really very late this year, owls are leaving their nest in the end of June!
In Midsummer weekend we went to Pudasjärvi Syöte where Janne’s relatives gathered to his brother Riku’s summer-cottage. Janne’s parent’s stayed in Riku’s cottage but together with Pirkka’s family we had rented the neighbour cottage. On the way to Syöte we tried to twitch a couple of year-ticks but Great Grey Owls were out from thei nest and Booted Warbler didn’t sing or show up because of the rain and the time of the day.
On Friday I heard a Two-barred Crossbill but almost nothing else even though we had a nice 6 km walk in the forest.
On Saturday we did a short bird-trip to the Syöte National Park where are very good forests for Red-flanked Bluetail. We started at 3 a.m. and started to stop in evry good looking place. On the 3rd stop we found a Wren and a Three-toed Woodpecker but then on the 4th stop we found a Red-flanked Bluetail! It was a stunning adult male but the light was very bad so we didn’t really see the colours well.
We also walked a couple of kilometres long Vattukuru trail and found another Bluetail, this time a 2nd c-y bird. It was also seen well but only singing on the top of the spruces. Later we still heard another Wren, a Lesser Whitethroat and a Wood Warbler before we drove back to sleep at 7 a.m.
The rest of the weekend we were just relaxing, playing with kids, dog and cats and eating a lot! On the way back home on Sunday we tried to twitch a Siberian Stonechat and a Ruddy Shelduck in Liperi but we failed to find them. We tried only 5 minutes because of it was raining and I wanted to hurry to see Italy-England football match.
On Monday 25th of June we went to ring the nestlings of Pygmy Owls. On the first nest-box in Siikalahti there were 4 nestlings and on the second in Kirpoavankivi there were even 7 nestlings to ring.
J.A.