The first week of October
On the 1st of October I saw 9000 Barnacle Geese and a White-tailed Eagle in Siikalahti. After my work I drove to Saari where I found geese from Jyrkilä fields. On the first flock there were only about 1000 geese so I found a Red-breasted Goose pretty easily. It had been seen already on the previous day. Then in the middle of the fields there were about 16000 geese more and I scanned them for an hour and found Bean and White-fronted Geese but also a Pink-footed Goose, a Greylag Goose and the same white-headed hybrid again. With Whooper Swans there were also 4 Bewick Swans. Other birds seen in Saari were 3 Great Grey Shrikes, a Kestrel, a Hen Harrier and a White-tailed Eagle. On the 2nd day I saw a Common Buzzard, Goshawk and a White-tailed Eagle in Siikalahti and 8000 Barnacle Geese in Kullinsuo. On the 3rd day I saw almost the same birds. In the evening my brother Pirkka arrived and we had planned to do birding whole weekend.
On the 4th of October we woke up at 5:30 a.m. and soon were going to Siikalahti. But there was a very thick fog. We had planned to try to find as many birds as possible from Siikalahti together with our local bird club. So we started walking toward the northern end of Siikalahti while Jari Kiljunen and Harri Partanen went to eastern side, Veijo Vilska was already on the main bird-tower. The fog stayed too long, but anyway we found some Black Grouses, a Snipe, Treecreepers, a Black Woodpecker and a Chiffchaff. Once we got back to the dam-road we heard Water Rails. Jassi and Harri had found some new species and Veijo had also 2.
Rolle Mortensen arrived too and finally the fog moved away. We stayed in the tower until 2 p.m. but the migration was pretty lame. Jassi and Harri found the best bid, a Red-backed Shrike, which was very late. But it disappeared too soon. We had a migrating Greylag Goose and a Nutcracker which were also nice. Maybe best migrants were 296 migrated Black-throated Divers – the biggest flock was 106 birds! Only 2 Red-throated Divers were found from the flocks. Other birds seen were 5 Cranes, 2 White-tailed Eagles, a Goshawk, a Common Buzzard, 12 Long-tailed Tits and 2 Chiffchaffs. From the tower we had only some common ducks but nothing better.
In the afternoon we decided to go to Saari to watch local geese. But the fields were empty! Luckily we found the geese on Kuposenmäki, but most of them were swimming in the middle of the lake. We estimated about 15000 Barnacle and about 2500 more were seen migrating. Later in the evening there were more and more White-fronted Geese migrating too and some flocks of Brent Geese. Also on Pink-footed Goose was seen migrating and a Greylag Goose was swimming with Barnacle Geese. In a few flocks of Whooper Swans we saw 11 Bewick Swans migrating too. In the evening we still tried to catch Tengmalm’s Owls without luck.
On Sunday the 5th of October we decided to go to Savonlinna Punkaharju Hirvikoski where we hadn’t visited for years. The main goal was to try to see local or migrating skuas that had been pretty commonly seen in big lakes – and also to see a Saimaa Seal. We arrived there at 7 a.m. and almost immediately found 3 skuas from the huge lake. They were very far but we managed to identify at least 2 of them as Pomarine Skuas! There was also quite good geese-migration going on but they were far on the western side of the lake. When the migration stopped we decided to stay there until 10 a.m. and finally at 9:50 o’clock I found a Saimaa Seal! It was pretty far but we all saw it quite well!
Then we drove to Saari where all fields were empty! We found only some hundreds of geese! In Kullinsuo we still found some 2000 Barnacle Geese but I found a good bird when a Shore Lark was found from the sky. Luckily it landed to a field and we saw it well too! It was my 220th bird-species seen in Parikkala this year!
Pirkka left to a long drive back to Kemijärvi but I still went to check a couple of places in Lake Simpele for skuas. But I saw only a flock 15 of 15 Red-throated DIvers.
On the 6th day I still saw a Nutcracker but after my work I started driving to south. I was leaving again to Azores very early on the next day!
J.A.