September 2004
Some birding – only some, but serious
If the summer was rainy, in the autumn it seemed to be even worse! The first day of September we went to Siikalahti to see if the Red-crested Pochards were still there. But they weren’t. Only better observation was a calling Moorhen.
3rd of September I set up the mist-net to Tarvaslampi because I was going to try to catch Owls again. I managed to catch a Tengmalm’s Owl in first night but it was the only bird I caught in whole month even I tried 6 nights. Those were the only night at weekends that it wasn’t raining.
On the 4th of September Hanna had gone to the weekend meeting of bird-painters, so I drove alone to Mikkeli to our friend and former Siikalahti guide Kristjan’s weddings. I decided to visit Lappeenranta, because there was a local Mandarin Duck. This beautiful duck was still there and it was my second Mandarin Duck ever. The first was more than 15 years ago.
Rest of the early September was pretty boring. But then came the biggest surprise of my life! My grandmother called me and told she had saved money for me, so I could buy a car! I spend one whole day on internet and tried to find good old, but not too old, cars. And I found perfect Citroen Berlingo from Helsinki. So I had to go to Helsinki by train as soon as possible.
On the 10th of September me and my dad went to buy the Berlingo, which was even better I had thought. Ant the best thing was that it was big enough for us.
The first car-ticks were seen in Kirkkonummi where I saw Merlin, Hen Harriers and an early Rough-legged Buzzard and so on in Saltfjärden.
I drove back to Parikkala through Kotka, because I had thought to go to do some raptor watching to Virolahti Kurkela. But the weather was horrible so I ended up to Savitaipale, where I tried to twitch a Red-flanked Bluetail, which had been found there evening before. But we saw only a Blackcap. In Lappeenranta Askola I saw one Grey Plover with a flock of Lapwings and the Mandarin Duck was even more beautiful than before.
On the 16th of September Konza called me that he had found a late Booted Warbler at Siikalahti. I used all my lunchtime trying to find the bird but I couldn’t find it. The place was so difficult for twitchers because of the farmhouse, so we decided to keep this bird as a secret. Because I had all the permits to walk in Siikalahti protected area and also on the farm, I decided to try the bird again after my work. I did manage to hear the bird calling and saw it shortly moving inside a dense bush before it just disappeared.
Other birders were seeing pretty good wader and water bird migration, but I wasn’t able to see migration at all because of work and rains – or maybe I was just too lazy?
On the 23rd of September I got a message that there was a Buff-breasted Sandpiper in Luumäki. I stopped working a little bit earlier so we could start our way there. We were a little bit worried because we couldn’t get any more messages about the bird even though we arrived at Luumäki 3,5 hours after the first message. When we finally reached the place, we met several other twitchers. And even the bird was still present! The bird was in a muddy field with a flock of Golden Plovers and Ruffs. Good Lifer!
On the way back we twitched the Mandarin Duck again so Hanna got the second lifer for the day! At Kaukaa pools we twitched a late Red-necked Phalarope, but Sanderling wasn’t there anymore. Also the Marsh Tit which had been there for several days wasn’t found.
On the 24th of September I started a crazy journey to Hailuoto! I had decided to join a birdrally there. Luckily I wasn’t the only crazy birder, so I managed to get company. Johannes Hänninen (Punkaharju) and Miika Suojarinne (Mikkeli) came to share the bills. The driving was hard, but we managed to get to Hailuoto Ailasto where we had rent a cottage for four person at 10 p.m. Mikko Ala-Kojola (Liminka), who was the fourth birder of our rally team, was already waiting for us.
We decided to start the rally from the N-W-coast of Hailuoto. We drove there at 6 a.m. and walk as long south as it was 7 a.m. Then the rally started! We had planned to walk even further to Keskiniemi, but we couldn’t manage it, because too wet places. So we decided to start walking back to the car. Our first better species were Red-necked Grebe, Golden Plover, Common Scoter, Bluethroat, Dunlin, Northern Wheatear, Willow Warbler, Merlin, Grey Plover, Little Stint, Sanderling and Peregrine Falcon. Before we reached the car we saw Long-tailed Duck, Dunnock, Sparrowhawk, Cormorant, Velvet Scoter and the best one, Swift. We had already spent 3 hours of rally time!
Next we drove to Marjaniemi where we found for example Scaup and a flock of Bean Geese. We were still identifying the geese when we got a message that there was a Lesser Short-toed Lark in Keskiniemi! Peltomäki, Sjöholm and Uusimäki had found the 3rd Lesser Short-toed Lark even in Finland from the place where we had been going earlier! Of course we had to go to twitch it!
We tried to drive as far as possible this time, but I managed to get my car stuck! So also those twitchers that were driving behind us had to stop because we were on their way! Luckily we managed to pull my car from the mud pretty easily. We all decided to leave the cars there and continue by feet. Only Juha Markkola and his team were trying to get further by his Lada.
Soon we met Peltsi’s team that was continuing their rally. So there was no-one seeing the bird! Only 15 minutes later we reached the place where the bird had been. Mikko’s GPS told that we had turned only 500 metres too early in the morning!
We waited for the rest of rally teams and soon we started to seek the bird from the meadow. We walked only a couple of tens of meters when we saw a small lark-like bird flying on the coastline above the dynes. It was calling like a Sand Martin, there it was! The bird landed pretty soon but rose again and flew far towards the Marjaniemi. Luckily it turned and flew really close to us calling all the time. Soon it landed behind the dynes again and we decided to continue our rally again.
When we all finally reached my car we had spent already 5,5 hours in almost same place! It was exactly the half of the whole rally time. Anyway we had got some new species, of course Lesser Short-toed Lark but also Black Grouse, Lapland Bunting, Raven, Common Crossbill and Goldcrest.
We continued to Pöllä, which was almost empty. Luckily I found a Siberian Tit when all others were trying to find Willow Grouses from the willow bushes. I had to shout the others and they managed to hear the tit calling still. We also saw a big female Goshawk before we had to move on.
Next we continued to Patelanselkä, but we couldn’t first find the place at all! We managed to get lost! Anyway we found some sign to bird tower and followed that. We never found that tower; we also managed to fail 3 new species, because only 1 or 2 of us saw them.
Finally we found Patelanselkä, and even new species! There was a Sand Martin with Swallows. At Kirkkosalmi we found easily some Gadwalls and White-tailed Eagle, but nothing else. From the village area we found still some easy birds which were still missing. It started to get better again! Anyway we were running out of time! So we had to skip couple of places and continue towards Pökönnokka.
From Pökönnokka we found easily Jack Snipe, Grey Heron and Ruff. Jurtsi’s team saw also a Snow Bunting, but we couldn’t find it. So when the rally ended at 6 p.m., we had found 82 species.
In the results we were 6th, but the quality in this rally had been really good! There were 5 teams with 90 or more species! Siberian Tit and Sand Martin were the only species that any of other teams hadn’t seen. In total there had been amazing 127 bird species seen in a rally! The best team, Lampila, Keskitalo and Taavetti, had seen 93 species.
Later we drove to Siikajoki Tauvo ringing station for the night. There was no ringer in the station but everything we needed was some sleep. When we woke up in the morning we saw heard some Rustic Buntings and I saw a Redstart. Later we walked around the whole Ulkonokka and counted all the shorebirds. The water lever was amazing high! So we all managed to get water to our boots. There weren’t lots of birds either but for example 10 Spotted Redshanks, 27 Ruffs, 6 Little Stints, 2 Sanderlings, 2 Hen Harriers, Merlin, Snow Bunting, Black Woodpecker and 2 Shovelers were seen.
In the afternoon we visited Kaasa and Haikarannokka before we had to start our way back to SE-Finland. I managed to get to Parikkala at 10 p.m. I was extremely tired but happy anyway!
On the 28th of September I went to Siikalahti in afternoon. There were nice flocks of Whooper Swans and Cranes on the fields. In total of 160 Cranes and 70 Swans were feeding on a field and I managed to get pretty close to photograph them. I also saw a family of Cranes. The young birds had rings on their legs! The birds that we had ringed with Pirkka were still there! I also saw a flock of 130 Barnacle Geese and some Bean Geese.
On the last day of the month I was working. When I was driving to the Health Centre I saw a flock of migrating Brent Geese. It was frustrating to go to work. In Kitee there was a good geese migration during the morning. So I decided to spend my lunch hour in our backyard on the coast of Lake Simpele. I managed to see more than 700 Barnacle Geese and one bigger surprise – young Red-footed Falcon was migrating over me! Konza counted more than 10 000 geese in Simpele so I wasn’t very happy to go back work, but I was pretty happy because of the Red-footed Falcon!