Hel Hath No Birdies

After what seemed like a mere two days of Spring, we have moved straight into Summer. The real marker of this for me is the arrival of Blyth's Reed warblers. My first came on a morning run with Kuura, singing just a few hundred meters from the house. But this week we were treated to a four day weekend which gave good opportunities for catching up with the early Summer arrivals..of which there are still surprisingly few. Thursday was taken up with various dog walking and DIY duties, the good weather being an opportunity to tackle some overdue garden maintenance. But I did manage to get a couple of hours out in the late evening. I stopped first at Maarintorni, where I was delighted to hear my first Penduline tit of the year. I was hoping to connect with my first Spotted Crake of the year too, but the bulk of these have seemingly been late too.  A showy Spotted Flycatcher was as close as I got.  Spotted Flycatcher - They're little charmers if you ask me. ...

It's fair to say Spring has not gone as planned. The April snows really have kept things at bay, and even the first couple of weeks of  May didn't help matters too much.  This weekend we hoped to hit Arktika, the mass migration of Geese and other birds that tends to happen at the end of May.  To facilitate this, and kill two birds with one stone, celebrating a family Birthday, we decided to rent a  mökki in Virolahti, a famous place for arctic migration, close to the Russian border. In former Soviet Union...Birds watch you.. Things didn't quite go to plan. When we finally got to the rental mökki on Friday evening, we were naturally exhausted. Also, the owners had left the heating on full blast, which, combined with it being the hottest day of the year so far, a whopping 23 degrees, made for a distinctly uncomfortable night's sleep. The poor 'Jedi, a double coated breed, found it particularly hard to settle.  Rental mökki in Virolahti....