. . Lintuharrastajan päiväkirja Birders diary . .

Twitching

After the week tour with a British group I was in Tampere without any plans what to do next. I had still more than a week holiday left before a military refresher course. So I decided to drive towards Oulu anyway; it’s too long I’ve been there more than one day. There are many good birding places and of course many friends and also relatives to see. But I was too tired to drive straight until Oulu, so my first goal was to get to Jyväskylä where a Baikal Teal had been found.

Somehow I managed to drive until Jyväskylä Manunsaari where the Baikal Teal had been seen. It had been seen just 5 minutes before I got there but it had swum to a reed-bed on the other side of the lake. I met my old friend Antti Pesola there and he had also missed the bird by a couple of minutes. As he was in a hurry to go to twitch another lifer, a Red-rumped Swallow to Espoo, he decided to drive to the other side of the lake to see if the duck was visible there. I decided to follow him so after 12 kilometres drive we found the exact place. We started to scan the reed-bed and then a couple of Mallards flushed just in front of us, and 2 other Mallards and a Baikal Teal followed them even though they were more than 200 metres from us. All the ducks flew over us and disappeared behind the closest trees. We ran after them but couldn’t see then on the lake. Antti managed to see one Mallard climbing to an island far on the other side of the lake so we thought that the Baikal Teal was also there. And the bird was found again soon.

But I was too tired to do anything anymore. But it was just the same where I was going to rest, so I joined Antti and Matti Tuunanen and tried to sleep on back-seat of Antti’s car. I managed to sleep only a little but surprisingly soon we were in Espoo Laajalahti where we walked to Maari bird-tower. There were plenty of twitchers and in a couple of minutes we found a Red-rumped Swallow from the flock of Swallows, House Martins and Sand Martins. We also saw 16 Broad-billed Sandpipers, 2 Gadwalls, 2 Slavonian Grebes, 2 Temminck’s Stints and heard a Reed Warbler there. I also saw briefly a Wagtail that probably was a female Citrine Wagtail but the light was too bad to that direction. Soon we continued to the other side of the bay where in Elfvik we twitched a Bushchat Shrike. So it was the 3rd second for me in Finland during the day! A Corn Crake was calling and a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker was seen there too. Pretty soon we were on the way back to Jyväskylä again.

Again I tried to sleep on the way but I couldn’t. Before Jyväskylä we stopped in Joutsa Rusila fish-pools where we twitched a Mandarin Duck. Finally we were in Jyväskylä and I felt even more tired than when we had left. So I just drove my car to Manunsaari and went to sleep to the back-seat. I’d try to get pictures of Baikal Teal when I’d wake up.

On the 31st of May I woke up at 5 a.m. and met some Baikal Teal twitchers – the bird had been missing for more than 10 hours, last evening there had been 30 searchers and all the regular places had been checked. So I decided to drive to check the place where we had seen the bird on previous afternoon – it wasn’t one of the regular places I thought. I couldn’t find the bird from the reed-bed but I decided to check the regular places by scope as they were very well visible from this place – and there the bird was in its regular place, just under a jetty. Soon it started to swim and swam behind the island. I put the message out and decided to drive back to Manunsaari to get the pictures I wanted. Soon the bird was found again and I managed to get some pretty good shots before it again swam to the wrong side of the island.

Tauvo

I was happy to leave Jyväskylä and continued towards north. I had decided to drive to Siikajoki Tauvo bird-ringing-station. I had already called to a ringer Matti Tynjälä and he warmly welcomed me there.

I was already in Siikajoki when I got a message about a possible Steppe Eagle in Kalajoki. I decided to drive to Alhonmäki to see if it comes there. So I spent there 3 hours and saw a young Golden Eagle, a Honey Buzzard, a Goshawk, 2 Sparrowhawks and a Common Buzzard but nothing else. Then I continued to Tauvo where I carried my luggage to the station and went to sleep.

I woke up after a couple of hours and left to walk around the protected Ulkonokka spit. Once I reached the shore I saw a strange 3rd calendar year harrier flying straight away from me. It was just gray upper side and there were no clear black wing-tips on under side either. I was sure it was a Pallid or Montagu’s Harrier but I hoped to see it better later.

I walked around the spit for 3 hours and saw 6 Little Terns, 3 Shelducks, a Turn Stone, family of Greylag Geese, 10 Ringed Plovers, 2 Dunlins, 10 Temminck’s Stints, a Red-backed Shrike and so on. When I got back to the station Matti had put up the mist-nets and started to check them every hour. It was surprisingly quiet on the mist-nets so I went to sleep for a couple of hours again.

The 1st of June. And I slept too long – I woke up after 5 a.m. but luckily there hadn’t been any hurry with the birds on mist-nets and I hadn’t missed anything better. During the morning we caught a Blackbird, a Chiffchaff, a Common Rosefinch, a Yellowhammer, a Siskin, a Redpoll and some more common species. The best bird of the morning was a Sedge Warbler with a Croatian ring! Every hour I spent 15 minutes in a bird-tower and heard a Willow Grouse and a Bittern and saw a Three-toed Woodpecker, 7 Broad-billed Sandpiper and a migrating Hawk Owl! It was really migrating north-east high on the sky! I also saw the same harrier again and now identified it as a Pallid Harrier. It was very far but I managed to see it well enough.

After a good day-sleep I went again to Ulkonokka. Of course the harrier wasn’t seen there, but in Munahieta I found another rarity – a Little Bunting! Also a Water Rail that was calling in same place was a local rarity. Other birds were pretty much the same than day earlier: 3 Shelducks, 3 Arctic Skuas, 2 Red-necked Phalaropes, 2 Broad-billed Sandpipers, but then weather changed and a thick fog covered everything. So I walked back to the station and then it started to rain too.

On the 2nd of June I had managed to change my rhythm totally – now I was awake at night and sleeping the day. I was making all the mist-net rounds but because of the wet weather there weren’t many birds. Luckily in the morning the bushes started to get dry and the birds started to move. Some better birds we caught were a White Wagtail, 2 Common Rosefinches and a couple of Whinchats. During the day we caught 65 birds + 13 controls.

After a short sleep I went to Ulkonokka again. The water was very high so I had to take my wellingtons away a couple of times and wade. Anyway I managed to get my wellingtons wet. Best birds were 16 Broad-billed Sandpipers, 2 Turnstones, 2 Red-necked Phalaropes, 2 Arctic Skuas, 3 Shelducks, a Garganey, a White-tailed Eagle and a Water Rail. It really is a long walk – 7 kilometres – to go around the Ulkonokka spit.

In the evening I slept again and woke up when the mist-nets were up again. The best birds during the night were a Blackcap and a Snipe. I also climbed to the tower a couple of times but saw only 7 Broad-billed Sandpipers and a couple of Little Terns.

At morning Mikko and Liisa Ojanen arrived and after some chatting with them I decided to leave to Oulu. On the way I checked Vartti fields but the wind was so hard that there was nothing to see. I also stopped in Liminka Virkkula where we birded together with a guide Antti Vierimaa for a couple of hours and saw 3 White-tailed Eagles, but not a Sandwiched Tern that Antti had seen on the previous day. In the afternoon I drove to Oulu to my brother Riku.

Gull-billed Tern

On the 4th of June I didn’t really do birding but when I was still shopping in Oulu Antti called me that a Sandwiched Tern was back in Virkkula. So I drove there immediately and the bird was luckily still there when I got to the bird-tower. It had just flight to a bay where it wasn’t visible but after a couple of minutes we saw it. The bird was flying along the shore but then suddenly started to get higher and higher to the sky. It was extremely far, maybe 2.5 kilometres from us but when it got very fast back down I started to see some identification marks of it – and it really didn’t look like a Sandwiched Tern to me! Soon other twitchers came too and I told them that someone should drive soon to Puhkiavanperä bird-tower which was much closer to the bird than we were – as I thought the bird was the 3rd Gull-billed Tern for Finland! Soon a couple of birders left there and I also decided to follow them. They managed to get to the tower before me and the bird was a Gull-billed Tern! I had still 100 metres to the tower when I heard a familiar call just some metres from me – a Penduline Tit was calling 6 times but I couldn’t find the bird. I called to the twitchers about the tit and continued to tower. The Penduline Tit called 3 times more but the twitchers didn’t see it either, but the Gull-billed Tern was missing. Antti still saw it a couple of times from Virkkula but I never saw it again. Luckily on the next day twitchers managed to see it again!

Hailuoto

On the 5th of June we left to birding to Hailuoto with Antti. In Oulunsalo Riuttu we saw 2 male Gadwalls while waiting for the ferry. At 7:30 a.m. our ferry left and from the ferry we saw a Turnstone and 4 Cormorants. In Hailuoto Huikku we saw the first 2 Shelducks and later during the day we saw 29 Shelducks. We visited Potinlahti, Karvonlahti, Ulkokarvo, Patelanselkä, Kirkkosalmi but didn’t really find anything special: a couple of adult White-tailed Eagles, a Honey Buzzard, a Turnstone and 20 Gadwalls. At 2 p.m. we took a ferry back and checked Oulunsalo Akionlahti and Oulu Kiviniemi on the way back to Oulu but found nothing better.

On the 6th of June we tried to find a Gull-billed Tern in Liminka with “potu” Suojarinne, but without luck. We checked Puhkiavanperä, Sannanlahti and Karvonlahti while Antti was in Virkkula but didn’t find anything else than a couple of Red-backed Shrikes and a Caspian Tern, Potu still continued until next day but he wasn’t lucky – the bird wasn’t seen anymore.

Military refresher course

On the 7th of June my military refresh course started in Oulu Hiukkavaara. The weather was awful hot – more than 30 degrees and there were too many insects, but we had a great group so 4 days went pretty quickly. I eve managed to see some birds: Green Sandpipers, Parrot Crossbills, a Honey Buzzard, a Black Woodpecker and then I amazingly heard a Bee-eater! Unfortunately I couldn’t find it from the blue sky. Im must also say that a call of Cuckoo is never the same again. They were calling all the time!

Last days of holiday
On the 10th of June the course ended and after some shopping I decided to drive back to Parikkala so I could relax and do some easy birding in there too on my last free days. In the evening I went to listen to a River Warbler to Moskuunniemi and at night I did a short night-singer-trip and I heard Blyth’s Reed Warblers, Corn Crakes, Spotted Crakes and a Nightjar.

On the 11th of July we guided a familiar Ponc Feliu and his family. Hanna had already been birding with him but during the day we still had some species to find. First we drove to Punkaharju Laakkii where Hanna’s brother Miika had found a nest of Grey-headed Woodpecker a couple of days earlier. On the way to the nest we walked through a beautiful meadow and forest to a lake and we had a Red-backed Shrike, a Black-throated Diver, an Icterine Warbler, Wood Warblers, Bullfinches, a Marsh Warbler, a Blackcap, Treecreeper and so on. But on the nest we had to wait for an hour before a female Grey-headed Woodpecker came to feed the nestlings.
Later we still went to ring the Ural Owl nestlings that had been too small on our last visit. Unfortunately another of the smaller sisters had been eaten by the bigger ones.

On the last day of my holiday I went to count night-singers to Siikalahti. I found 8 Reed Warblers, 5 Spotted Crakes and 7 Water Rails but not any Little Crakes, Savi’s Warblers or other rarities I was hoping for. A Long-eared Owl was carrying a prey to its nestlings in Kaukola where also a River Warbler was singing. Also some Corn Crakes, many Blyth’s Reed Warblers and Thrush Nightingales and a Golden Oriole and a Nightjar were also heard. The rest of the day I just relaxed so I’d be able to get back work on the next day. I had been birding a lot on my 3.5 weeks holiday! I had seen 214 species in that time in Finland!

J.A.