Riding The Storm
It's been a mixed bag, weather-wise, the past couple of weeks, meaning my birding has been carried out in short bursts.
Red-Breasted Goose - I don't mind saying it. I love geese. It's become a bit of a problem actually. And Red-Breasted Goose is the cream of the crop.
Dark-Bellied Brent Goose
Waxwings - was nice to come across a migratory flock of these beauties. Not much in the way of berries here this year, so I expect these will all push south and west.
1st winter Waxwing - I don't get to see them in this plumage too often.
Rough Legged Buzzard are trickling off in numbers significantly, but this juv was a treat and gave excellent views.
The usual Great Grey Shrike was also in the Saltfjarden area.
A family visit to Laajalahti produced impressive flocks of Bearded Reedling and Smew.
The real gem of the past few days came in the form of a Nutcracker finally visiting the feeders.
Getting Lyra ready to leave the house, I just happened to look out the kitchen window and saw a familiar white tipped tail pattern glide across the garden. Panic! Grabbed my bins and the wife's camera and snapped a couple of record shots (sadly through the triple glazing). But job done and victory achieved. The reason for building the smorgasbord has been fulfilled.
Cautious and wary, he spent some time on the trellis whilst making his mind up on going for the peanuts.
But he made the jump. Interesting to note that the Jay flock seemed quite submissive to the nutcracker, not even attempting to land whilst this was present.
Hopefully this guy tells the other couple of birds I know to be in the bay of the bounty of the smorgasbord and they become regular.
Today I had a free day and decided to indulge in a rare bout of twitching (unusual for me these days). This was a bit of a gamble, as a storm was forecast to land in the evening and the wind was already getting strong.
A Red-Breasted Goose was present out east in Porvoo, and seemed to be reasonable views on offer, so I made my way down.
Arriving at the quoted location, I and several others could not locate the bird in the small flock.
After about an hour scouring this area I decided to branch out. I knew the fields north of Porvoo often had Rough-Legged Buzzard and stubble fields that looked good for geese. This paid off well, with a big flock of some 4-500 Barnacle geese present.
After briefly being distracted by this Rough-Legged Buzzard, I got down to the thankless task of grilling the geese.
Rough-Legged Buzzard
It was very tough going, with the geese being shoulder deep in stubble. But eventually, thanks to several Goshawk flushing them on occasion, I eventually re-located the Red-Breasted Goose.
The difficulty at picking this bird out was at times mind-blowing. Even in flight, it was nigh on impossible to find among the swirling mass of barnacles. It brought back traumatic memories of dipping on the Wexford bird, a wound that has never healed.
This Dark-Bellied Brent Goose was also a nice surprise in the flock. Not a rare or scarce bird by any means, with huge numbers going through in passage windows, however they tend to move along the coast and go straight through. It's unusual to see them on the deck, so I took this one in whilst I had the chance.
The aforementioned Goshawks were surprisingly useful at putting the geese up, giving me a chance to refind the Red-Breasted.
Goshawk - 2nd Cal
Not the first time I've seen Goshawk go for Barnacle geese, indeed I've even seen one successfully kill one before. This juv tried his best to single this one out, but gave up in the end.
Goshawk - 2nd cal
An excellent day all in all, with probably some of my best ever views of Red-Breasted Goose.
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