September 2007
September – Autumn comes again
In the beginning of September we were in Oulu but we weren’t really birding. We took part to a football tournament where local bird associations were playing. We had time to play 2 games and we were playing in Lappland team. On the 2nd day on the way back home we stopped in Kajaani Otanmäki where a Slavonian Grebe, a Grey Heron, a Coot, 2 Curlew Sandpipers, 8 Dunlins, 20 Little Stints and 4 Smews were seen.
On the next day 3 Red-throated Pipits and 2 Little Stints were seen in Siikalahti and a Nutcracker in Kangaskylä, also a Grey Wagtail was still in Kokkolanjoki. On the 4th evening I went to twitch a young Dotterel to Joutseno. Luckily I found it just before the dusk. On the next day a Grey-headed Woodpecker, a Ringed Plover, a White-tailed Eagle, 5 Eater Rails, 3 Lappland Buntings were observed in Siikalahti and a Common Sandpiper in Härskiinmutka.
Next days were really quiet: on the 9th day we were birding with Pekka Punnonen and we saw an Osprey, 2 Bluethroats, 2 Rustic Buntings and a Little Stint that was walking on the road in Siikalahti. In Saari and Uukuniemi we saw 2 Grey-headed Woodpeckers, 6 Lappland Buntings, some Great Grey Shrikes and a couple of Red-necked Grebes with a really young juvenile. In the evening we were alarmed to Joutseno again where we twitched a Short-toed Lark in Konnunsuo. I also found a Red-breasted Flycatcher as a year-tick in Leppälä.
On the 12th day we went to twitch a White-rumped Sandpiper but the bird left when we still had some 40 kilometres to drive. We managed to get until Joensuu so we went to visit Hannas brother Miika there. The bad luck continued when I couldn’t find a Great Snipe that Jari Kontiokorpi saw in Siikalahti. Luckily a tame young Red-footed Falcon was sitting on the wire in Kaukola and let me digiscope it very well.
On the 14th of September we saw the first 5 Bean Geese and a White-fronted Goose, 3 young Little Gulls and also hundreds of migrating Chaffinches in Siikalahti. Autumn has really started.
We had tried a couple of times to catch some owls too, but only a couple of Tengmalm’s Owls had been heard from the tops of the trees around the nets.
On the morning of 15th day we drove to Joutseno Suokumaa to ring some Dunnocks with Karri Kuitunen. Unfortunately the day was worst day in whole autumn and only 9 Dunnocks were caught. Anyway we had a good time and a Wood Sandpiper, 6 Ringed Plovers and later in Konnunsuo some flocks of geese, 5 Cormorants and 37 Stock Doves were seen.
On the 16th day we birded with Jarmo Pirhonen in Siikalahti. 629 Barnacle Geese, a Greylag Goose, 176 geese sp, 153 anser-geese, 15 Velvet Scoters, 2 Ringed Plovers, 2 Red-thoated Pipits and so on were migrating. a Wren was calling, more than a hundred Cranes were migrating and 240 were still flying around. I saw a Bittern landing to the reeds and a Red-footed Falcon was still flying around with 2 Hobbies. In Lahdensuo we saw an Ural Owl and in Kullinsuo I saw a couple of thousands of finches in several big flocks. On the 19th day in Kullinsuo I saw a Peregrine Falcon, 13 Ruffs and a Dunlin.
On the 21st day there were 2 adult White-tailed Eagles sitting together in Siikalahti. Hopefully our old friend had found a couple! I hope there is a place where they could breed somewhere close in the future. Altogether 138 Whooper Swans were already in Siikalahti on the next day.
23th day was one of the days I will remember always! Hanna was in Hanko with other bird-painters, but we had planned to go to Simpele to watch migration together with Jari and Jarmo. But morning was extremely foggy. So we started from Koitsanlahti where nothing special was found and continued soon to Siikalahti. The Red-footed Falcon was still around and 5 Ruffs were migrating with a Dunlin, a Grey-headed Woodpecker was calling and a Nutcracker was flying over us. Finally the weather came clearer and we decided to continue to Simpele water-tower as we had planned. We had expected to see a really good Chaffinch migration but only a couple of thousands were seen. But a nice collection of raptors were seen: 48 Sparrowhawks, 33 Buzzards, 2 Ospreys, a Hobby, some Merlins and 7 plovers (5 bigger and 2 smaller, maybe Grey Plovers and Dotterels but too far) were migrating. At 12.20 p.m. I noticed a strange bird migrating straight towards South about a kilometre from us just above the tops of the trees. Right away I realized that it was something really good. The shape of the bird was between a Wood Pigeon and a Jackdaw but the flight was really relaxed and strange. I shouted something to the others and after a couple of seconds even though the light was extremely bad and no colours were seen I realized the bird must be a Roller! A couple of minutes we watched the Roller passing us and only twice we could see some blue colour on its wings and once its brown back. Then the bird seemed to land to a couple of kilometres from us close to a gas-station.
After some celebrating we went to try to find the bird with Jarmo and Jouko Poutanen who had luckily came to the tower just an hour before the Roller. But we never found the bird again. But Matti Lötjönen found a Great Grey Owl that I digiscoped until the dusk, but still I twitched the Grey Wagtail and Red-footed Falcon because I wanted to make the day perfect! The Roller was the first new self-found species for my after 4.5 years!
On the next day Mikko Pöllänen found the Roller exactly there where we had seen it landing, just some 500 metres from the gas-station. So we all managed to photograph it and because of it was the only Roller in Finland this year many twitchers came to see it. Some twitchers saw the bird in the morning of 25th day but after that it wasn’t seen. But unfortunately it was found again on the next day – it had been hit by a car and it never survived!
On the 26th and 27th day I still digiscoped the Red-footed Falcon, saw a Grey-headed Woodpecker, found the first Gadwalls of the year for Siikalahti where also a Pochard and Marsh Harrier were still.
Hailuoto-rally
On the 28th day I drove to Juva where Miika (potu) Suojarinne and Andreas Lindén already were and we continued to Hailuoto to join traditionally to a birdrace. On the way we saw a Rough-legged Buzzard, a Merlin, 3 Woodcocks and a Short-eared Owl. And in the late evening on the ferry to Hailuoto we saw the northern sky flash absolutely bright. Later we read that it had been the biggest meteor in last 30 years!
Our team was Tuomo Jaakkonen, Pirkka and Janne Aalto and Andreas Lindén. We had a cottage together with Harry Nyström, Mikko Ala-Kojola and Miika Suojarinne in Pöllä.
At 7 a.m. the rally started and we started to collect species. In the beginning there weren’t anything special but soon we found some Smews, Snipes, 2 Dunlins, 2 Ringed Plovers, a Merlin, a Great Grey Shrike, some Mute Swans with hundreds of Whooper Swans, 2 small flocks of Bean Geese, 4 Long-tailed Ducks and some Scaups were flying and 2 adult White-tailed Eagles landed to a rocky island. Anyway we had a feeling we hadn’t found anything special. We walked to Riisinnokka where we had plenty of passerines to our list. A Blackbird, Song Thrushes, Dunnocks and 3 Three-toed Woodpeckers were the best ones. I saw a Swallow but it flew behind a forest too quickly, but luckily a Black Grouse was found flying above the same trees. When we were walking to our car we heard a Great Grey shrike calling very strange calls and surprisingly later during the day we heard a couple of more calling similarly.
In Pöllä we had only a White Wagtail and some other easy species. On the way to Kirkkosalmi we stopped to check a flock of 104 Bean Geese and meanwhile there was a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker calling. Kirkkosalmi was good as always: Bearded Reedlings were calling, Gadwalls, a couple of big flocks of Ruffs, a Mistle Thrush and a Hen Harrier were also good species.
In Kuivasäikkä we found a flock of Long-tailed Tits, a Jack Snipe and some Golden Plovers. In Ulkokarvo we found Shovelers and a couple of Goshawks. There was also a huge flock of Tufted Ducks, several thousands.
We continued to Pökönnokka where 2 young Shelducks, a flock of Black-headed Gulls, a flock of Dunlins, 3 Spotted Redshanks and a Curlew Sandpiper were found.
We were in a hurry when we drove through the whole island to the other side to Marjaniemi where we found 2 Velvet Scoters, a Common Scoter and 2 Grey Plovers, but otherwise the sea was as empty there as everywhere else. We still drove to Virpiniemi where we had some Cormorants, a Little Stint and 2 Snow Buntings and still we had 15 minutes to check Keskiniemi. We managed still to find a Red-breasted Grebe which was our last and 80th species.
The weather had been maybe too good so the number of species was maybe smaller than we had ever seen in this race, but anyway we had a feeling that we had done well. After all we became 3rd and we lost the silver by only one species. The winners had 86 species.
We slept in Pöllä and during the next morning we birded in Kuivasäikkä. The weather was much more normal, windy and foggy. We saw a couple of Jack Snipes, a Grey Plover and some Golden Plovers but soon we decided to go to twitch a White-backed Woodpecker to Oulunsalo. On the way to the ferry we twitched a Tree Sparrow as a Hailuoto-tick and soon we were in Oulunsalo Nenännokka where the White-backed Woodpecker was found easily. It was a new tick to this PPLY-area for me, even though I had lived there for 15 years! In Nenännokka we saw still some Dunlins, 8 Grey Plovers and so on.
With potu we started our long way back east. We saw 18 Collared Doves and a Nutcracker in Liminka. And we still had a short walk in Siikajoki Tauvo Munahieta where 29 Dunlins, 4 Little Stints, 3 Curlew Sandpipers, a Short-eared Owl and a Snow Bunting were seen. The rest of the trip was long and I was back home when the month changed.