Summer Idyll

A catch up post.

We've been spending weeks living the Finnish Summer dream, which means grilled food, beer, G&TS, Sauna, Swimming, Hot Tubbing etc.


The newly built deck. Hot tub, sauna and lake adjacent. A luxurious way to cool off when it's ~ 30°C.

Birding has been on the sporadic side of things enjoying the last of the singing migrants before they go silent. 

Icterine Warbler is among these, and it's an incredible year for them. Normally there's only one present in our neighborhood. This year there's 6 in song! 









Icterine Warbler - Ickys are one of those species that, being rare back home, are a delight to have as an easy bird here. 




I've also been checking in with the local Red-Necked Grebe at times. Love these stunners. 





Red-Necked Grebe - look at that colour! 




A brief trip to Laajalahti afforded me some close views of a pair of Great White Egret. No matter how common these become I'll always have a soft spot for them. 





Great White Egret - eternally exotic.


Most of the past month has been spent at the cabin in Hämeenkyrö meaning listening to birds like Curlew and Corncrake on a regular basis. 

This Blyth's Reed Warbler was one of many individuals in the area, but was particularly showy. 






Blyth's Reed Warbler - full wing formula on display. It's awful when they're this skulky 😉.








Stabilization caused a bit of a glitch in the matrix on this one 


A rare twitch saw me nip over to Seitseminen national park for a singing 2CY male Red-Flanked Bluetail. Bluetail is a bird I just really hadn't bothered to make the effort for in Finland, but a bird so close was something I couldn't pass up. I actually hadn't been to this national park since my very first visit to Finland 8 years ago, when I ticked both Capercaillie and Three-Toed Woodpecker here. I got brief but satisfying views of the Bluetail, with both of the aforementioned species for back up and Parrot Crossbill too.

I've also paid a visit to Tarastenjärvi dump. As we approach juvenile Caspian Gull season I'll be visiting here on a regular basis. 

In early July, it means looking through an array of mystifyingly variable first summer Nordic Herring gulls, which is the stuff of nightmares.



This bird was interesting, showing what looked like plain first gen tertials (with remnant white tips), grey in the mantle and an interesting structure. Unfortunately it didn't play ball for me. 


As usual, the Baltic Gulls were abundant and obliging. 


Baltic Gull - Adult


Baltic Gull - 2CY


Baltic Gull - 2CY and adult


Baltic Gull - 2CY


Baltic Gull - 2CY


Baltic Gull - 2CY wing pattern



Baltic Gull - adult


Baltic Gull - adult





A family of Little Ringed Plover were doing their best to brave the horde of gulls without being devoured. 






Little Ringed Plover - adults and chicks

Arguably the best bird (if you're so inclined) was this Heuglin's type gull. 



Always difficult to make a call on these things and these shots don't do it justice. In life it had that almost Yellow Legged gull tone of blue to it, which I've come to associate with some good Heuglin's candidates here.

A little chunkier and tougher looking than your average Baltic too, with a stronger chest. 



Heuglin's type wing pattern. Likely a sub-adult.

Bring on the juv Caspian's!

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