Wake Me Up When September Ends

A long week, and a long weekend.

Some free evenings this week where I attempted to get in some post work birding, but the year really has turned, and usable light in the evening is very brief.

A late evening trip around Saltfjarden produced several Hen Harrier and the last of the common Crane.

A large gathering of Barnacle geese near the golf course had what looked like a cackling goose in it, however at a low elevation, in a busy feeding flock of 3000 or so geese, I lost it within seconds. This would have been a major rarity had I nailed it. An attempt in the same location later in the week failed, with only a few hundred geese in situ, though it was interesting to note a reported small Canada goose further east later in the week. Will never know.

On Saturday we set off around Saltfjarden again, with a decent raptor migration underway. 

A nice selection of Rough Legged Buzzard, Hen Harrier, Common Buzzard, White Tailed Eagle and Goshawk all seen at various locations around the peninsula.

I do love Rough Legged Buzzard migration season. I still think of these birds as mega, coming from an Irish context, so days where you see double digits of them is continuously amazing. They are also inherently fascinating, with lots going on in terms of different plumages with sex and age.

A fair bit of Woodpecker activity was evident too, lots of Great Spotted Woodpecker and Black Woodpecker moving.

Sunday I set off through Siuntio, again looking for raptors. I encountered a nice flock of mixed geese near the rantasippi hotel, which included Barnacle, Canada geese and a few Tundra Bean geese.

Bean geese, of either type, are again a real treat for me, always a very good rarity In Ireland, and again, lots of variety to acquaint yourself with in them.

The canadas also had the odd mongrel in them.

Whilst watching these geese I picked up a 1st year White Tailed Eagle in the distance, clearly taking an interest in the geese. He began to make his approach, but cocked up his glide path, being forced to pull up to gain more height, and spooking the intended goose targets.

Fun to watch young raptors learning their craft, but hopefully this one learns quickly before winter hits.

Just down the road at sunnanvik a Rough Legged Buzzard and a juv Hen Harrier were hunting, with another Rough Legged at Degerby.

Rough Legged Buzzard

It was then on back to Saltfjarden where other Rough Leggeds were on the move as well as a pristine 1st year Golden Eagle.

A small flooded area near the car park produced a large flock of 60 mobile snipe and a late Yellow Wagtail among all the Whites.

Yellow Wagtail

On Monday we had some things to do in Turku, which meant I got a little bit of time in Topinoja dump. There had been 7 Caspian gulls here of late, likely more than that, so I was looking forward to a casp-fest.

I wasn't disappointed.

Almost immediately a 2nd cal bird dropped in among the deck-squabbling gulls. It was a hoor to phonescope though, as you can see here.

Just ran out of shot. Shame too, it would have been nice.

I then ran into this little cracker, a smallish diminutive bird, but clean and crisp.

 

A real beauty.

This individual I would be hesitant to call. It had many good features, though was one of those types displaying a "fractal" pattern to some of the upperparts feather tracts, and a somewhat unusual greater coverts pattern. Nonetheless it felt more pure Caspian than anything else.

Unfortunately it kept it's distance and kept the sun behind it at all times. I'd keep this in the probable pile.

This bird then appeared on a trash pile beside me and was a lot more cooperative. Stunning creature.

I tried to check various online sources for the birds previously seen in the dump, but doesn't look like any of these, apart from the 2nd cal bird, were photographed before, so could be new. I had a couple of others which didn't play ball for shots though, which could have been some of the others from previous weeks.

As with any dump in Finland, you come across plenty of unusual beasts too.

 It was also fun to see a couple of juvenile Ruff teetering around on the trash with the gulls. Avoiding the work vehicles in the same manner, but otherwise tolerant of human activity.

Juv Ruff

"Are you going to eat that?"

Excellent long weekend with a slew of beautiful birds on offer.