Birthday Beans

Over the past week there's been a big uptick in the number of Spring migrants coming in to the country. 

In Finland, the vast majority of species are migratory by necessity. Few birds can tolerate the cold, especially the kind of cold we've had this past Winter and these tend to be the forest species that take shelter in woodland and make use of garden feeders. 

And so the same feeling you get as a birder further south, seeing those first swallows and wheatears returning, applies equally for us here with those first Starlings, Skylarks and Woodpigeons which suddenly appear in March.

Woodpigeons going over the house. March Viz-mig at it's finest. 

Last weekend we took advantage of the first wave of birds, feeling sorry for them being forced to deal with fields still covered with snow.

A quick family trip to Degerby produced Stock Doves, multiple Common Buzzard (including a good Steppe Buzzard candidate), takes of Skylark, Lapwing and a flock of some 30+ Snow Bunting.

Star of the show for me was this single Tundra Bean Goose in with the first Canada and Greylag geese.

Tundra Bean Goose 

I've always loved Bean Geese. The birds at Stabannan in '98 were one of my first ever twitches and was my very first with my own scope, my old opticron classic mk II.

I've seen a few of both types over the years in Ireland, but they're genuinely very rare and here you really get to delve in to the ID of the two together.

Taiga Bean Goose is the scarcer of the two in Finland and significantly so. In my experience the bulk of them tend to be early, so it's good to get out watching geese earlier in the year as they move through reasonably quickly, leaving the Tundra Beans to dominate.

This past weekend I made for Vanjärvi, one of the best locations for watching geese in the capital region. 

Starting out near the bird tower I stopped first at a flock of Whooper Swans as a couple of Bewick's Swans had been reported. 

Here I found 3 together, which was a nice surprise, with another, possibly 4th individual further up the road later on. 

Bewick's Swan - a scarce migrant here. The Finnish name, Pikkujoutsen - "Little Swan", makes them even more endearing. 

Migrant year ticks included Meadow Pipit, White Wagtail, with numerous Common Crane going over.

A huge flock of mixed geese were also present in the area, including Taiga and Tundra Bean Geese, Greylags, Canada and Eurasian White-Fronted Geese. 

First up the Tundra Bean Geese. Some headed, with a more prominent forehead, giving the impression that the eye is more centered in the head. The bill is usually more isoceles triangle shaped, with a thick base to the lower mandible and a more jowl effect to the chin exacerbating this appearance.

The neck is usual short and thick looking, but it's important to assess this carefully over time in some cases, alert birds can appear longer necked at times.

Every now and again you come across an ultra pale Tundra Bean. These are a real pit trap for Pink-Footed Goose.

Taiga Bean Geese - I often find Taiga has more structural variation within the species than Tundra, with some being very large and swan like (like the lone bird I'm the images above), whilst others can approach the appearance of Tundra, especially in terms of the head and bill. 

Assessing the length of the neck is best done in profile where both the blending of the chest structure and the narrowness of the neck can be judged. It's a bit more difficult trying to do this on birds moving away from you, where the hump of the back can obscure the neck length and the neck thickness of the nape is not so useful. 

Checking the head and bill structure in profile is also important. The bill on Taiga Bean Goose tends to be longer and more right angled triangle in shape, with less mass in the base of the lower mandible and less of a jowl effect on the chin, giving a sleeker, smoother blend into the bill.

The head itself is longer and more wedge shaped, rather than domed, and the forehead flows smoothly down to the bill, which places the eye in a more forward position, closer to the outline of the forehead. 

A Tundra Bean like this has a slightly sleeker head profile, not so much jowl going on. Note however, that the head is quite domed, the eye quite centered and the bill quite conical. The neck is thick and sturdy. 

The ideal comparison. Taiga vs. Tundra. Chalk and Cheese.

Eurasian White-Fronted Geese were in good numbers as usual. Always nice to see these more delicate looking birds (compared to Ireland's Greenland types).

Eurasian White-Fronted Goose - always cuter than Greenland types.

Eurasian White-Fronted Goose, with an unusual pale collared Tundra Bean Goose.

Towards the afternoon I relocated a huge number of geese at the southern end of the lake, and found 2 Pink-Footed Goose and 4 Barnacle Geese as year ticks, with several Coot fresh in on the open water. 

A pretty decent haul, with excellent views all round. Keep that spring coming!