Winter-bird count and the end of the year
On the 26th of December I was time to do a winter-bird count again. Together with Hanna’s brother Miika we walked about 17 kilometers around Siikalahti again starting from our garden. We had to walk fast as the day is very short in this time of the year so it was once again a hard day, but again it was worthy. Altogether we saw 17 Rock Pigeons, 2 Black Woodpeckers, 3 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, a White-backed Woodpecker, a Three-toed Woodpecker which was my first ever local bird in Siikalahti and of course a new winter-bird count tick, 31 Waxwings, 4 Blackbirds, 91 Fieldfares, 10 Goldcrests, 5 Long-tailed Tits, 5 Willow Tits, a Coal Tit, 32 Blue Tits, 107 Great Tits, a Treecreeper, 2 Great Grey Shrikes, 4 Jays, 16 Magpies, 30 Jackdaws, 9 Hooded Crows, 5 Ravens, 10 Tree Sparrows, 22 Green Finches, 141 Redpolls, 55 Bullfinches and 13 Yellowhammers. 26 species was a new record in mid-winter count.
On the 27th of December we went together with Hanna and her brother Miika and sister Elissa to Savonlinna Punkaharju Laukansari to walk to the forests that have many foreign trees. We found a flock of 20 Coal Tits, nice flock of 25 Two-barred Crossbills, 45 Common Crossbills, 2 Nutcrackers, 15 Long-tailed Tits, Treecreepers, Crested Tits, 75 Fieldfares, a Blackbird and 2 Black Woodpeckers. On the way back home we saw a male Capercaillie on the top of a pine in Laisennurkka and a flock of 250 Fieldfares in Moskuunniemi.
The last birds of the year I marked on the 28th day when on the way to Lappeenranta I stopped in Rautjärvi Simpele Kokkolanjoki where I saw a Dipper and in Imatra Vuoksi where I saw 3 Cormorants.
The year 2014 was really good but very rare birds wee missing in the whole country! I managed to see 267 species in Finland and 241 of them were self-found. In South-Karelia I saw 236 species and even 224 in Parikkala, which I think was the best number I got. In Siikalahti I saw 196 of them! 204 species were seen while eco-birding, all in Parikkala. I got only 7 new Western Palearctic ticks, all from Azores. The only Finnish-tick was a Red Kite I twitched in December and only self-found tick was a Lesser Grey Shrike. Let’s see what will the year 2015 bring?
J.A.