Bar-headed Goose and the end of September
The autumn really started at 23rd of September! It was raining and windy, but the wind was now from north! So it was arctica time! Geese were on the move but unfortunately big clouds were jammed over Parikkala and South-Karelia, so most of the birds went around the clouds. Good numbers of geese were counted in Mid-Finland and even in Western Finland, which is not normal. I was still a little bit sick, so I didn’t want to go out to see pretty bad migration in bad weather, so I saw only some thousands of geese on my lunch-hours. On the 24th of September, after my work-day, I went to Siikalahti and saw a 2nd c-y Golden Eagle and about 3500 local Barnacle Geese. Then it started to rain, so I decided to drive to Saari to check if there were lots of geese on the fields.
It was surprisingly quiet in Saari, only some hundreds of Barnacle Geese were seen before in Jyrkilä I found about 2500 and in Tarassiinlahti 7500 of them. Some flocks of Tundra Bean Geese were seen but only a couple of White-fronted Geese. Swans were all Whooper Swans so there are still lots of birds to come…
On the 25th of September it was raining whole day – it was even snowing a little! I checked the fields around Siikalahti during my lunch-hour, but I found only one flock of about 1000 Barnacle Geese. In the evening I got an sms that family Kontiokorpi had found a Bar-headed Goose in Kinnarniemi field. I left there immediately and saw a Nutcracked flying over the road on the way. I managed to find the flock easily and the Bar-headed Goose before I stopped. It was getting dark already. The goose was very close to the main road so I didn’t dare to get out of the car at all. I watched it by binoculars through a wet car-window, but then a truck and a bus came and scared the whole big flock to the sky. The flock flew to the Lake Simpele but too far, so even though I still saw the flock, I couldn’t find the Bar-headed Goose anymore.
On the next morning I went to check the same field and managed to find the flock with the Bar-headed Goose from the other side of the field. I managed to drive behind some trees to digiscope it. They didn’t care about me at all and even walked closer but then a car came and flushed the flock again. They landed again to the other side of the field but for me it was time to go to work.
On my lunch-hour I went to see the geese again as the weather was a little bit better. Bar-headed Goose was sleeping on a small Barnacle Goose flock. Barnacles were moving to the other side of the field to a bigger flock and after some waiting also Bar-headed Goose woke up and soon it left to a bigger flock.
On the 27th of September there was again some geese migration but the mid-day was pretty quiet anyway. We went to check the fields nearby with Jari Kiljunen but found nothing better, but we saw a nice flock of geese with 39 Bewick’s Swans. We thought the migration could get better so I went back to Siikalahti and saw much more geese, 1200 grey geese, 2500 Barnacle Geese and 42 Bewick’s Swans. I also saw 110 Cranes, 5000 local Barnacle geese, a Ruff, a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and a very late Marsh Harrier and even later Honey Buzzard.
On the 28th of September I was watching migration in Punkaharju Punkasalmi, but all geese were migrating very far on both sides of the Lake Saimaa. I saw about 4000 geese altogether in 4 hours. Other birds were 50 Black-throated and 5 Red-throated Divers, a Long-tailed duck, a Cormorant and 2 young White-tailed Eagles. Once I was back in Parikkala I drove to Siikalahti and while I was parking Jouko Rantanen called me that he had seen the Bar-headed Goose flying around Saari Vaaranmäki tower and then started to head towards Siikalahti with a big flock of Barnacle Geese. I ran to the tower and immediately found 2 big flocks of geese coming towards me. The first flock had only Barnacle Geese but on the first flock I managed to see the same Bar-headed Goose migrating towards south! On Tetrisuo fields I still saw a Redstart.
In the evening we tried to catch owls again but we heard only a Tengmalm’s Owl once. But the geese were really migrating! During the evening and night we could hear flocks of geese all the time! There must have been hundreds of thousands of them! The most of the calls we heard were White-fronted Geese but also Barnacle and Bean geese flocks were numerous.
On the 29th of September we were in Siikalahti in cold weather. In a couple of hours we saw 3500 migrating Barnacle Geese and a hybrid between Barnacle and Canada Goose. Other birds were the same Marsh Harrier, a Black Woodpecker, a Chiffchaff, 3 Great Grey Shrikes and 7 Long-tailed Tits. On the way home I saw 2 Nutcrackers in Kangaskylä. In the afternoon I went to Saari where I still saw about 15000 Barnacle Geese. Other birds were a Hazel Hen, a Capercaillie, 2 Long-tailed Tits, 2 Hen Harriers, a Bewick’s Swan, a Golden Plover and a Jack Snipe.
J.A.