Siberian Accentor in South Karelia!
On Tuesday evening on the 4th of October I got a message that a Siberian Accentor had been found only 130 kilometers from Parikkala in Savitaipale. But the message came so late that it was almost dark outside, so I had to hope the bird stays at least for the next afternoon as I had to go to work next morning. There had been one wintering Siberian Accentor in Finland in winter 1998-99 but since that all the records had been from only one day, so I didn’t expect this bird to stay either.
I had seen Siberian Accentors on our trip to Polar Ural in summer, but still I really wanted to get a Finnish-tick and of course a South Karelia-tick. So on the morning of 5th of October I was checking if there were any news about the bird while I was working. And surprisingly it was first seen only by one twitcher and heard by the others, but then it was first seen very well on the top f a tree but then seen flying high towards south, as far as it was possible to follow… So I could forget my twitching plans…
But luckily some twitchers stayed on the place and it was heard again after 20 minutes and finally also seen again! And then there were new messages coming about every 1.5 hours and they all had the same message; the bird was extremely difficult to see!
So I had to quit my working day an hour early so I could stay in Savitaipale for long enough before it gets dark. On the way I picked up Sampsa Cairenius who had already seen the bird, but wanted to get pictures too. It was good to have him with me, as he knew the place and how the bird had been acting.
Finally we parked to the sewage-ponds of Peijonsuo and soon found about 15 twitchers that seemed to be looking to a bush just in front of them. I could see that they were actually just trying to see the bird. So I walked to my old friend Olavi Kemppainen who had been there already from early morning and he told me where the bird had just been seen. And soon I got instructions where another birder was seeing the bird – and there it was a stunning Siberian Accentor! It was showing extremely well under very dense vegetation, so I couldn’t get any pictures. Most of the birders still didn’t see it and I heard it hadn’t been seen at all for 1.5 hours! When everyone was moving and trying to see to the small area, where the bird was, it moved under the vegetation again. But soon it jumped to a small willow and was seen extremely well but again flushed too soon and flew pretty far inside the bush.
One of the twitchers decided to go around the bush and surprisingly found the bird along a small track where it was finally seen extremely well for about 5 minutes! Now everyone saw it well and we even managed to get really good pictures! But soon it disappeared to the vegetation again and after some searching it was found from the ordinary place again. We still saw it a couple of times but after all we were happy to start driving back to home.
J.A.