Nightsingers

The past couple of weeks have generally been spent enjoying the staged arrival of "Nightsingers".

Garden listing has been good too, with Waxwing, Brent Goose and Wigeon all added to the tally.





 Waxwing is still a bizzare bird to me when you see them at this time of year. At least 2 birds were present, taking a quick break on their way north.


The birding phenomenon of conducting an "Yöretki" , a night trip in search of those dusk or nocturnal singing species, is something lacking in Ireland and quintessentially Finnish.

We really should be chancing our arm more in Ireland for this purpose, as there is arguably everything to play for in finding species such as Great Reed Warbler, Savi's, River, Marsh warbler and Nightingales if we did so.

I started out on Friday evening at Laajalahti, nabbing Broad-Billed Sandpiper and Little Stint for the year.

Bad weather all day had dropped a large number of birds into the bay, with a few hundred Ringed Plover present, several Little Stint, 25+ Temminck's Stint, 20 Dunlin and 12 Broad-Billed Sandpipers.


Crisp. 


Broad-Billed Sandpipers. Easily one of the best waders going. I love seeing these arrive back every Spring.



Temminck's Stints too are little gems.

From here it was on to Iso Huopalahti for some Nightsinger action. It was a little on the cold side, but nonetheless I encountered Thrush Nightingale, Blyth's Reed Warbler, Corncrake, Icterine warbler and Common Rosefinch.

A plague of Common Swift, a species that still does well here, were blotting out the sky.



The Nightking - Thrush Nightingale

On Saturday I started out at Suomenoja, finding my first Marsh Warbler of the year and enjoying the usual Slavonian Grebes.


Slavonian Grebe

I then moved on into the woods around Hvitorp in search of Icterine Warblers, finding 2 singing males at my usual sites, along with 1 Greenish warbler and 1 Red-Breasted Flycatcher.


Icterine Warbler - Incredible song

I moved on to Stora lonoks for the evening where I enjoyed good views of singing Great Reed Warblers.



Great Reed Warbler - Giant Crunchers


Great Reed Warbler - It can take time to pick these guys out, despite their song and size, but a bit of patience pays off.

Other good birds in the area included Hobby, Osprey, Bittern, Black and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and swarms of Swift.


From here it was on to Masala, where I encountered more Thrush 'gales, Common Rosefinch, Whinchat, Blyth's Reed warblers, an impressive 9 Corncrake and 2 Spotted Crake. Great birding all round.

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