May 2004
May – And again to Siikalahti
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1st of May we started our work in Siikalahti again. It was already 6th summer for me and tenth for Hanna when we went to do guiding and, again this year, bird counts there. The beginning was extremely busy! We had a lot of visitors and the counts started directly.
We do the counts in Siikalahti by using couple of different systems. They include duck counts (also waders and gulls which are stopped on their migration will be counted) and mappings which means that we map all the breeding birds in whole area. So we count the ducks several times every week from 10 different points and walk all around (and in) Siikalahti 5 times to find all the birds. Also the night singers will be counted 5 times. So there is lots of work!
Every week we also guide all the visitors which come to Siikalahti from Wednesday to Sunday and always if a group orders a private guiding.
Antti Vierimaa came again to work as a third worker so luckily all the work was not for us.
Of course in Siikalahti we started to see some interesting birds. The weather was amazing warm! It was even 25 degrees!
In the beginning of May we saw White Storks, Peregrine Falcon, Black-tailed Godwits, and Marsh Sandpiper. Some other nice birds in Siikalahti were Jack Snipes, Bluethroats, Ural Owls and the earliest ever Swifts in South Karelia 5.5.
8th of May we joined to traditional bird tower competition. But our competition was quite boring! Even we saw 82 species the sky was extremely empty. There was almost no migration at all! So some really common species were lacking. The best species were White Stork and Feral Pigeon. Latter one is much rarer in Siikalahti.
Luckily other birders were luckier. So after the competition we twitched Black-necked Grebe from Lappeenranta Haapajärvi. On the same lake there was also a flock of 10 Steller’s Eiders.
Some days later we had to go to Lappeenranta again. Now there was one kind of semi-fulvescens Great Spotted Eagle in Kaislanen.
Before the mid of May the weather changed totally. It came really cold! So there were not so many birds around. We waited the arctic migration, but it never came to South Karelia. It was pushed to Russia because of the heavy Western winds. The only birds that were lost to South Karelia went on a horrible weather! It was cold, windy and hard rain, so we were sleeping while some tough birders saw some 20000 Barnacle Geese.
But we didn’t miss all arctic migration. Even almost all birds were already gone we decided to go to Virolahti, South Eastern corner of Finland to see if some Brent Geese should still come. The first day was like a holiday. Sun was singing and it was so nice and calm. Not so many birds but we really enjoyed. Only I managed to see one 2nd year Kittiwake passing us. But we all got several year ticks. At Kurkela we saw a displaying pair of Black Kites. Nice!
Second day was better. At morning we counted about 5000 Brent Geese, but at evening we saw some 20000 more! We also counted some 3000 waders which included nice amounts of Dunlins, Grey Plovers and some Knots. The migration was still going on when we had to begin our way back to Parikkala.
At the end of month we were stressed because of too much work! I was also stressed because I had promised to lead a night singer trip for a group of Italians, and there were no night singers yet. So I really had to work hard to find the first ones! But after all I found everything needed at the last possibly night. So we managed to see River, Grasshopper and Blyth’s Reed Warbler, Thrush Nightingale, Common Rosefinch, Corn Crake and some other common birds like Slavonian Grebes and Red-necked Pochards. Also Water Rails, Spotted Crakes, Icterine Warbler and Nightjar were heard but luckily we didn’t have to try to see all these birds, because some of them are impossible.