Ferruginous Duck
The week started windy and even thought the wind was from south the migration wasn’t going on strong during the days. It was raining also which of course wasn’t good. On Monday the 22nd of April I visited Siikalahti early in the morning and also on my lunch-hour but only a couple of White-fronted Geese was seen and a Great Bittern was heard. During the day I got pictures that had been taken earlier in Lappeenranta and the bird in the picture had been reported as a possible Ferruginous Duck.
Even though the pictures were bad, I was sure it was one and left to Lappeenranta after my work. Once I got to Kaislanen the light was awful but anyway the duck was easy to identify as a Ferruginous Duck. I wanted to see the bird better and decided to come back in the evening light.
So I visited Haapajärvi where I saw a Common Tern, 2 Gadwalls and heard a Redshank. In the evening I drove back to Kaislanen where the Ferrogious Duck was seen just a little bit better. A Chiffchaff was singing and a Grey Heron and a Great Crested Grebe were seen.
On the 23rd day I went to work at 9:30 a.m. so I could do some birding early in the morning. I walked first time this spring to the bird-tower but the bay there was still surprisingly frozen. A Common Sandpiper was standing no ice, a Gold Finch was migrating and 10 Common Pochards, a couple of Pintails, a male Smew and 3 Canada Geese were swimming on the open water areas. 150 Bean, 50 White-fronted and a Greylag Goose were seen in flight towards Tetrisuo. So I decided to go there too and managed to see all the geese better there. There were also 92 Whooper Swans, a Bewick’s Swan and 5 Canada Geese. I still checked Särkisalmi where I saw 8 Great Crested Grebes and a Black-throated Diver. After my work I tried to twitch a Hoopoe that Jari Kontiokorpi had seen in Lahdensuo fields but it had left South-East and hadn’t come back. It was raining but I was lucky to see a beautiful male Pallid Harrier that was migrating along the fields. It was my 150th year-tick.
On the 24th day I saw he same geese in Tetrisuo, there were now 200 Bean Geese and 4 Bewick’s Swans. Only new year-tick was Lapland Bunting that I saw 9 migrating birds.
J.A.