Birding in around the Helsinki area.
An Irish love refugee birding in Finland. Loves migration, raptors and Finnish cinnamon buns.
A Grand Visit
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The end of July saw a visit from my parents, eager to meet their granddaughter, take place.
Needless to say, getting the new Grandda a few nice birds was a bit of a priority too, and at the top of the agenda were our local Eagle Owls, a long overdue lifer for the old man.
A family outing ensued, and 3 generations of birder spent a rather pleasant, if intensely hot evening, enjoying a monstrous juvenile Eagle Owl, good food, and beers in the intensely urban and picturesque setting above.
There are some birds, which, whilst being truly awesome to watch, instill a feeling of reverence at the same time.
Eagle owl is one such species. If ever a Tiger took bird form it would be that of an Eagle Owl. Those eyes. Those talons. Those fluffy, cuddly paws of death.
This pair have been successful here for many years now, though only one youngster seems to be present this year. Hopefully it goes on to live a happy life decimating the city's rabbit population.
Eagle Owl - Hail to the king
Easy summer birding at it's best, washed down with a few cold beers.
Refreshments
The entirety of the visit was, however, insanely hot, with most days between 28 and 31°C, making birding fairly difficult.
We did manage to nip out here and there for a few choice morsels, however.
Dawn at Laajalahti
A very early, dawn start at Laajalahti at least allowed us to bird for a few hours in manageable temperatures. The usual fare was here, plenty of Caspian Terns, Wood Sands, Green Sands, Spotted Redshank, Temmincks stint, Little ringed plover, Hobby, Marsh Harrier etc. Alas no luck with any of the resident Spotted Crake, needed by his decrepitness.
Wood Sandpiper
Caspian Terns
We carried on to Suomenoja in the hopes of said crakes, but were again disappointed, instead settling for some juv/winter plumaged Slavonian Grebe.
Slav
We then carried on to Porkkala, where the woodlands offered some slight relief from the strength of the sun.
A party of extremely fresh fledged Red Breasted Flycatchers were a real treat here, me personally having never seen birds quite this young before.
Juv Red Breasted Flycatcher - barely recognizable and downright grotty. Hard to believe in just a few weeks these beauties will be clean and crisp, maybe on a headland in Ireland.
A quick stop at Sundsin produced a large family party of Red Backed Shrike, the adults looking particularly grotty after having produced so many young.
Red Backed Shrike
We also nipped out to take a quick look at the nearby Red-Necked Grebes, another good, rarely encountered bird in Ireland, and certainly never in Juv plumage.
Red Necked Grebe - juvenile - Don Foley
Otherwise it was just about enjoying common garden birds like Icterine warbler, Pied Flycatcher, Osprey etc. And frequently cooling off with beers or dips in the lake.
Icterine warbler - Don Foley
Hopefully it won't be too long before their next visit.
White-Rumped Sandpiper is a pretty consistent rarity in Ireland, with frequent autumn influxes building a base for return migration birds in late Spring and Summer. I've found 3 individuals over the years, all away from the wader center of Tacumshin. October 2002 My first self found individual occurred at Rogerstown, Co. Dublin. Visiting the hide midweek with the old man, thorough scanning up and down the channel wasn't producing much, except for an interesting head which, amazingly, was popping up from behind the mud right below us. The bird walked out into the open and revealed itself to be a pristine juvenile White-Rumped Sandpiper. The bird gave excellent view for us for close to an hour, before it moved further up the channel and was lost to view. A pretty good Dublin find, if I do say so myself. Ballycotton, September 7th, 2006 My second self found bird came again on another bit of midweek sniping, taking a geologist friend of mine down to Ballycotton to photograph the ...
Owen and Conor Foley, Robert Vaughan. Images by Owen Foley and Robert Vaughan Arrived late in the evening to Budapest airport on Sunday 12th, flying with Aer Lingus. Hired a car (a Ford Fusion) from Fox Auto Rental at a cost of 285 Euro for the week. Species seen are logged on the days they were encountered. Left the airport environs at 9 p.m and drove straight to Josvafo, in Aggtelek hills. Tawny Owl was encountered en route. This took the guts of 3 and a half ours, with stops for food etc, and meant an over night in the car as it was too late to get a hotel. This was not exactly comfortable, but we rose with the sun and found interesting birds straight away, including numerous Hawfinch feeding on the common wild cherry trees, Syrian Woodpecker, Golden Oriole , Willow and Marsh tit, Nuthatch, Wood Warbler and Little Owl . Golden Oriole Aggtelek - Superb Woodland Birding We then moved to the crossroads recommended by Gosney, finding River Warbler, Red Backed Shrike, Grey head...
Blockers. We love those don't we? There are certain species types which remain unattainable in Ireland. For some reason, very most likely due to Ireland's population geospatial/coastal nature, things like rare thrushes, rare raptors and crossbill species just don't get found very often. The habitat for visiting crossbills is certainly there, but much of it is inland. 28th September, 2008. On the night of the 26th/27th of September myself and Robert Vaughan set off for west Cork, intent on a weekend of hunting migs on the headlands. There had been various bits around, including Melodious Warbler, Common Rosefinch etc so we were hopefull. Things started ominously though,when sometime around 3/4 in the morning a tyre completely exploded somewhere around Urlingford. Rob held the torch whilst I got the spare on, but it was one of those "emergency spares" they give with cars these days, and it meant we would have to stop somewhere and get the real tyre replaced as I w...
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