Where Eagles Dare

Saturday was a washout, but Sunday was a stunning day and was looking prime for raptors.

I made my way out to Kirkkonummi in the hopes of some Golden Eagles. I'm not sure if people have picked up on this reading the blog, but I kinda love raptors. And Golden Eagles are a rather special treat. This time of year the Kirkkonummi area floods with young Goldies, many of which stay the winter.

Kirkkonummi did not disappoint. The sky was full of birds, with geese, Common and Rough Legged Buzzards, White Tailed Eagles and over a dozen Golden Eagles during the day.

I started out at Gunnarsby, the other side of Saltfjarden, and picked up what looked like a Great White Egret in the marsh with the naked eye as I parked up.

I'm not too sure what the story is with this. I could see 7 or 8 birders on Saltfjarden tower, who I can only presume could see this bird, though it is possible that the line of reeds obscured it from their viewpoint. It wasn't on the news services, and the guys on Sundsin later were surprised when I mentioned it, so I can count it as a find I suppose.

Great White Egret
 

A rather nice Short Eared Owl was also quartering the marsh, always good birds to see down in South Finland. This bird, unlike the forest owls won't linger long, and could even be next stop potatoland. 

A quick scan of the sky here produced several White Tailed Eagles, a couple of Goshawks, Rough Legged Buzzard and 2 1st winter Golden Eagle.

Golden Eagle - Distant 1st winter

I then moved on to Jarso fields where two Rough Legged Buzzards were giving excellent views.

Rough Legged Buzzard - 2nd CY female

From Jarso I moved further south towards Storskanskog where yet more eagles were showing well, including 6 White Tailed and a 2CY Golden Eagle.


Golden Eagle - 2 Calendar Year


Further south again, on Sundsin tower, yet more good numbers of Eagles and Rough Legged Buzzards, with the height provided by this tower allowing an impressive count of 8 Golden Eagle and 15 Rough Legged Buzzard and 6 Goshawk. A distinctly red tailed Buzzard ticked all the boxes for Steppe Buzzard, but most birds were viewing distantly here, so I decided to move back to Saltfjarden. 

The view from Sundsin tower. Autumn colours.

Saltfjarden had yet more Rough Legged buzzards and Eagles. But even more impressive was a late movement of geese, with mixed flocks of Barnacle, Russian Whitefronted and both Taiga and Tundra Bean geese pushing through in the hundreds. 



Rough Legged Buzzard - Male - One of the great things about this time of year is getting opportunities to try and age the various raptors. Most of the birds seen today were older individuals.

Many of the geese landed in to Mattby fields for the night and I had a good, if distant, scan through them in the scant hope of a Red Breasted but a Great Grey Shrike harassing a big flock of Brambling was the best on offer.

Northern Grey Shrike - Always distant, wary hoors

A superb raptor day in beautiful conditions. Hopefully a few of these spend the winter in the area.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finnish Focus On...Taiga And Tundra Bean Geese

Image
Have been meaning to write a post on Tundra and Taiga Bean Goose identification for a while now. Wildfowl are my guilty pleasure. I've always enjoyed looking for them. The escape issue turns a lot of people off them. Grey geese can turn people off further still. Since moving to Finland, being able to spend long hours in the field watching both types of Bean Goose has been a joy, especially considering how rare they are in Ireland.  Tundra Bean Geese are the far commoner species to occur here, making them the easier to photograph and so a good place to start. Tundra Bean Goose Tundra Bean Goose - careful assessment of structure is most important when identifying bean geese. Whilst there are size differences between the smaller Tundra and larger Taiga, this plays out most obviously in their structure and shape. Both species, rear on, can be extremely difficult to pick apart without the structural clues visible. The head and bill structure are crucial in Bean Goose identification. Thi...
Read more

How To Be A Rarity Finder

Image
A recent statistic popped up in my various social media memories.  To date I've been birding on 4 continents, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, and found rare birds on each of them. Pretty happy with that. 😎 So thought a post on how to go about finding rarities and importantly, how to BE a rarity finder was worth throwing up. They may sound like the same thing, but I have different views on both. One is methodology. The other is an outlook. Combine the best of both and you will achieve your goals. First up, the Methodology . 1. KNOW YOUR BIRDS This is an obvious one (though people may have different perceptions on what this takes.)  It stands to reason though, that to find a Lesser Yellowlegs as a vagrant, you're going to have to know what a Redshank looks like (in all plumages)...and Greenshank ...and Wood Sandpiper ...and then...just to be really fecking sure... Greater Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpiper and Marsh Sandpiper too. Lesser Yellowlegs - I've found 6 Lesser...
Read more

Racism and Bigotry in Birding

Image
It's hard to pick up a newspaper these days and not read about something the new moniker "alt-right" are up to. The rise of racism to more mainstream levels is undeniable. Do we, as birders, need to have this discussion though? Do we know it's out there, among us? I'm pretty sure we do. It's tempting to believe the best about yourself, and this extrapolates to ourselves as a group; as birders. It's tempting to believe that the hobby of birding, taking place in nature, with a holistic, interconnected view of nature, would not harbour backwards, ignorant, scumbag neanderthals, that would discriminate on the basis of colour, creed, ethnicity, sex or sexual preference...over the past two years I've learned, sadly, that this temptation would lead you to the wrong conclusion. Birding, like any other microcosm of humanity, has it's share of these regrettable people. When I say over the past two years, I mean, perhaps, I have been just as ...
Read more