Hel Hath No Birdies

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...

Been meaning to post a bit of a catch up on Finnish Birding. Always too busy. It was a reasonably tough winter. Not much in the way of the usual winter rarities out there, and generally pretty poor on the Owl and Woodpecker front.  I didn't manage to attract any Nutcracker to my garden this year, but as always a trip or two was made to the feeding site in Lohja. Never fails to be enjoyable. Nutcracker - Cracks your nuts Crested Tit A Crested Tit visiting the feeder in my garden, and a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker doing the same were two new phenomena over the past few months. Both species which we have regularly in the garden, but never actually taking food before. A mid-winter Caspian Gull, a 2nd winter (3CY), present in Helsinki city center was too good to pass up.  I showed up to the main open air market in Helsinki to find a small crowd of birders scanning around looking for it, but with no luck.  After an hour and a half standing around in the snow and Sub-Zero temps, I...