. . Lintuharrastajan päiväkirja Birders diary . .

On Thursday 21st of February, together with Hanna and my good friends Juha and Hannu Honkanen, we left to drive towards south at 6 p.m. It was a long drive to Espoo where I dropped the brothers and then we continued to Kirkkonummi to my parents.

On thw 22nd of February we woke up early and before 7 a.m. we were driving towards Espoo again. We picked up Juha, Hannu and also Heikki Kauppinen and continued to Helsinki-Vantaa airport. There we found the rest of our group Kari Huotilainen and Antti Heinonen – so we had almost the same group than in autumn 2010 in Barcelona.

Our flight to Paris left at 8:50 a.m. and I managed to sleep most of the flight. At 11:50 a.m. we landed to Orly airport and there we saw the first better bird of the trip, a Kestrel. Soon we took a automatic train to Antony metro-station from where we continued changing 3 times to Porte de St-Cloud. There we had only a short walk to our hotel Résidence Mercure Le Scénario. Our roomes weren’t ready yet but after we had eaten delicious burger meals we could leave our luggage to our rooms.

With Hanna we decided to walk to Eiffel tower along River Seine but there weren’t many birds to see, Black-headed and Yellow-legged Gulls, Mallards, some Cormorants, Wood and Rock Pigeons, Carrion Crows, Starlings and House Sparrows. Also some Blackbirds, Magpies and 2 Grey Wagtails were seen.

Soon we could see Eiffel tower rising up behind the buildings and we of course continued walking towards it. When we were walking over the river we could see that the rest of our group had just arrived to the bridge too. They had taken taxi to get there. We of course took lots of pictures and then decided to get up to the tower too. There was a long queue and the weather was really freezing cold but after a half an hour we finally got to the stairs and climbed up to the second level of the tower. It was a long climb, the tower really was huge – 18 000 iron parts and 2.5 million knobs had been used to build it.

From the second floor we then bought the tickets to an elevator to get to the highest level which was 276 metres high – the highest point of the tower was 324 metres. The views were stunning and even though it was really bad wind and extremely cold we took lots of pictures. The sun had already set down so the city was full of lights!

We were really freezing when we got down from the tower but anyway we had to take more pictures of the tower which was now full of lights. Then we took a taxi back to our hotel where we needed to get a hot shower to get warm. We were really tired so we went to sleep early while the rest of our group went to see Paris nightlife.

On the 23rd of February before 9 a.m. we were walking towards the metro-station. On the way we heard some Siskins and saw some Greenfinches. We changed once and finally got to Châteae-Rouge metro-station from where we walked towards the highest hill of Paris, Montmartre. We climbed up and photographed a beautiful Sacré-Cœur temple. Then we went to Place du Tertre where we saw many painters at work. Only new bird-species there were Great and Blue Tits and Chaffinches. Then we walked down to the shopping streets where the shops were just opening.

Next 1.5 hours Hanna was shopping in tissue and handicraft shops, then we of course went to see famous Moulin Rouge before taking a metro to Champs-Élysées. There we go to the street right next to Arc de Triomphe which was much bigger than we had expected, even 51 metres high. We both thought it looked like Gaada Stack on Foula, Shetland.

Then we walked along Champs-Élysées and did some shopping but mostly just watched through the windows of the really expensive shops. We passed Grand and Petit Palaice, Place de la Concorde, Louvre, walked through some parks where we saw a Song Thrush and heard a Short-toed Treecreeper and finally walked over Seine to Île de la Cité where we walked to see famous Nodre Damen cathedral. There were far too many tourists so we decided not to get inside the cathedral but of course took plenty of pictures outside. We walked around the cathedral to a bridge which was full of locks that were locked there bu thousands of loving couples. There we heard a White Wagtail flying over us. Then we continued to Île Saint-Louis where we did some more shopping before we walked along Seine to a metro-station and took a metro back to our hotel.

It wasn’t very late yet but we were extremely tired after about 13 kilometres walking. So we ate very bad beefs on the hotel restaurant and then went to sleep early. The rest of our group had been sleeping late after their visit to the bars next to Moulin Rouge and even though they had also been walking a lot in the city during the afternoon, they left to check the clubs along Seine.

24th of February we were out already before 8 a.m. heard a Dunnock calling and took a metro to Louvre. In Musée du Louvre we went to a queue where was only about 10 people before us. While waiting for the museum to open we of course photographed the underside of the glass-pyramide and finally at 9 a.m. the museum opened and we got in to buy the tickets.

We started from the Egyptian art section which was huge, it was in several floors and many corridors and countless rooms. Then we checked some parts of European and Greek arts before headed to the main floor to see the most famous European pieces of art that included Nike of Samothraki, Mona Lisa and many other famous paintings and statues. Then we still walked through African and Japanese sections before we decided to give up – we weren’t going to see all 30 000 pieces of art in this 60 000m² big museum.

Anyway we hadn’t got enough of museums yet so we walked over Seine where we saw again plenty of Black-headed and Yellow-legged Gulls but also a Lesser Black-backed Gull and continued to Musée d’Orsay. We had to queue for a half an hour to get inside this huge museum that was in an old railway-station. There we walked through all 3 floors and saw numerous pieces of arts from 1800 and 1900 century. In 1.5 hours we got familiar with many genres and saw paintings from many famous names like Manet, Gauguin, van Gogh, Degas, Monet and Renoir.

But then we had walked too much and we had to give up. After we had sat down for a few minutes we walked out and went to see a huge Invalides church with beautiful dome and then continued towards Eiffel tower, under it and over the river to Trocadéro, where we still queued to a big aquarium that had been built to 1878 World Exposition. A part of our group came there too but inside it was far too crowded and there were too many children so it was very noisy! So we checked all the aquariums pretty fast and soon were going back towards our hotel by metro.

Our hotel yard was full of policemen as the football team Olympique Marseille had came to spend some hours to the same hotel where we were staying. When we got into our rooms 7 more police-cars and about 20 more policemen arrived.

At 7 p.m. we left to walk towards the stadium Parc des Princes which was only 1 kilometre from our hotel. The tickets to this Classico game had been very expensive so Hanna had decided to stay at hotel where she saw team OM leaving the hotel soon. Of course she watched part of the game from television. The first time the tickets were checked already hundreds of metres before the stadium. And soon there were even bigger queues in front of us. It was really difficult to get into the stadium and we had no idea if we were on the right side of it at all. Luckily we managed to get through the third huge mass of people too and found out that we were exactly where we had hoped to be. After a quick shopping in PSG store we climbed up to the stand. Soon the teams came to the field and started the warm-up. The atmosphere was great, people were singing and shouting and several bombs were exploding. Soon everything was ready for the kick-off! As it was the biggest game in French league and even the first match for PSG’s latest huge acquisition David Beckham, there was another huge star making the opening kick for the game – Ronaldo (that real one from Brazil).

At 9 p.m. the game finally started. And after 1 minute PSG had their first good attempt but Ezequel Lavezzi’s shot hit the post. Then on 11th minute the stadium exploded when Lucas kicked the ball to the goal – the ball changed direction from 2 OM players. Marseille started to play better but the half-time result was 1 to 0.

The second half started with OM domination but also PSG got some really good chances that Lavezzi or Zlatan Ibrahimović somehow managed to screw up. PSG’s goalie Salvatore Sirigu was playing well and especially André-Pierre Gignac’s stunning scissor kick was very close to score. On the 76th minute PSG finally made their first changes and Chantôme Clément and David Beckham got in! Beckham was playing in very defensive role, but he really gave good passes to his team-members. On the 90th minute Beckham played the ball to Jérémy Ménez who kicked the ball towards the goal and somehow Zlatan, who had played maybe one of his worst games ever, managed to lead the ball in, 2 to 0.

The overtime went quickly while the crowd was singing and soon we were trying to get out from the stadium. It wasn’t much easier than getting in but finally we were walking back to our hotel. There we decided to go straight to sleep, it was almost midnight anyway.

On the 25th of February we had a good breakfast in the hotel and then took a taxi to Orly airport. There was a huge traffic-jam but luckily we got to the airport in less than 45 minutes. There we did some shopping and finally at 11:30 a.m. our flight left – flocks of Lapwings were seen from the plane. I managed to sleep most of the time again and we landed to Helsinki-Vantaa about at 4 p.m. There we said goodbye to Heikki, Kari and Antti and started a long way back to Parikkala. We picked up Hannu’s dog on the way and were finally at home before 9 p.m. We had really had good time in Paris, even though we hadn’t been birding at all – only 24 species of birds had been seen.

J.A.