Hel Hath No Birdies

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...

It's been a busy month so far with some decent birding highlights. We started out with a birthday present of a long weekend at Hanko. Early Spring, with the ice recently left the sea, meant good numbers of Eider on the move, as well as the first Oystercatchers and Ringed Plovers back in. Highlights from the trip included Rock Pipits (a species I've only seen once before in Finland) and my first Finnish Black Guillemot (a species which is relatively easy to see offshore from Helsinki, but I've never bothered to look for previously).  The best came in the form of a seawatch male King Eider from Vedagrundet. I've seen a few of these beauties since living here, but this was my first self found bird.  We also had a couple of Room on the trip, just knocking around the town. Always a scarce migrant on the south coast.  Rook - 2CY - at the rarity Mecca of LIDL. The first Caspian Terns, always the first terns to return, have been putting on good shows, especially at my old patch...