September 2008
September – Finally a holiday
Finally it was September when I finally had my summer holiday and of course we were going to travel. So I wasn’t very interested to do much birding around Parikkala. Anyway I was birding at least a couple of hours every day.
On the 1st of September there were still 3 Great Ringed Plovers and 2 Little Stints in Lahdensuo and a Black Redstart was still in Kullinsuo. The next better bird was an Arctic Skua in Siikalahti on the 4th day.
On the 5th day I went to check a field where Jari Kontiokorpi had seen many good migrants and I found several Bluethroats easily. But after some walking I managed to find a couple of good surprises – 2 Corn Crakes and a Great Snipe!
On the 6th day we drove to Kirkkonummi to my parents. On the way we heard a Red-throated Pipit in Lappeenranta Toikansuo, saw 3 Wood Larks in Luumäki and twitched a Mandarin Duck in Heinola Nyynäistenlahti. Luckily we managed to see this female duck before it was too dark as we were there almost too late. It was the year-tick number 265 which is my record!
On the 7th of September we birded in Espoo Laajalahti where we twitched a Great White Egret and saw a good number of waders, a Shelduck and so on, in Finno we saw a Little Grebe, Moorhens and Gadwalls and in Kirkkonummi Saltfjärden more than a thousand of Greylag Geese, Red-throated Pipits and Lapland Buntings.
On the 8th of September we started our trip to Madeira. Our target was mostly on sea watching that we made in Porto Moniz for 21 hours and saw more than a thousand of Manx’s Shearwaters and of course plenty of other seabirds and of course we went to see all the Madeiran endemics. Read the whole Madeira tripreport:.
On the 15th of September we were back in Finland but already on the 16th we left to Andalucia press/fam birdwatching trip. We were birding with 29 other participans from 9 countries around the Andalucia and saw altogether 190 bird species, for example Black Wheatears, a Western Olivaceous Warbler, a Spanish Imperial Eagle, a Sabine’s Gull and so on. Read the Andalucia trip report:.
On the 21st of September we were back at home. And after 3 hours sleep I had to go to work.
During the next days I was way too tired to go birding but on the 26th day I managed to see a Rustic Bunting, a flock of 173 migrating Barnacle Geese, 28 Bean Geese, a White-fronted Goose and in big flock of ducks there was a Scaup and 14 Smews.
On the 27th day during the morning we saw more than 5000 geese – 4156 of them were identified as Barnacle. Also 2 White-tailed Eagles and an Osprey were migrating, 5 Water Rails were still calling but the most interesting record were 2 small waders that were migrating together – another one was a Dunlin but the second one looked like a Purple Sandpiper. Unfortunately the birds never came close enough for sure identification.
On the 28th day it was not a good day for migration. The old friend White-tailed Eagle was again chasing ducks and Coots in Siikalahti. A drive around Saari was also boring, just a couple of flocks of Barnacle Geese and 3 Great Grey Shrikes were found.
On the last day of September during my lunch-hour I saw altogether 490 Brent Geese migrating in 2 flocks. Also 2 Red-throated Divers, a young White-tailed Eagle, a Stock Dove and Bluethroat were seen. In the afternoon I went again to Siikalahti but the migration that had been strong during my workday was over.