Long Overdue

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 retreated to a Cafe a couple of kilometers back west along the coast.

After having warmed up and caffeinated up sufficiently, I got back in the car, intending on making my way back west... however some click in the brain made me autopilot back east, back in the direction of the market, so I decided I may as well check the gulls again and....bingo...the bird was back! I put the news out and it sparked a major twitch.















Tail pattern



Caspian Gull - 2nd Winter (3CY) - a new plumage for me, so had to be done.







Mid-winter twitching in Helsinki. It's a contrast of serene beauty and bitter joint pain.

Seeing (and hearing) one birder call out loudly on the phone where the bird was and what it was doing, so that some guys on an island 2 kilometers away could "see" the bird and tick it for their island list was a bit ridiculous, but made me laugh.

It was pretty standard winter fare otherwise, with the occasional Goshawk intimidating us from the garden. 




Goshawk

A mid winter trip to Porvoo produced the usual White-Backed Woodpeckers (usual he says, as if they aren't brilliant).









White-Backed Woodpecker - the king of Woodpeckers




A Great-Grey Owl in Espoo was also too good to pass up, in fact requiring two successful visits to enjoy fully. 


























Great Grey Owl - amazing bird




I then had a fantastic 10 day trip in Morocco, finding 3 national megas there, namely Citrine Wagtail, Bonaparte's Gull and Lesser Yellowlegs.

Lesser Yellowlegs 

Bonaparte's Gull 

After Morocco, it was good to connect with the Grebes, now back in breeding plumage. 



Slavonian Grebe







Red-Necked Grebe




A 4 day weekend up in Hameenkyrö allowed for some continued quality rare bird finding, first with a routine visit to Tarastenjärvi dump gulling producing a classic 2CY spring Caspian Gull. 

Caspian Gull - this bird stood out well, with an obvious shawl and retained juv Greater Coverts.




Caspian Gull - Nice tail pattern and clean white underwing.




Caspian Gull - crisp

The following day, whilst cruising around the grasslands looking for Corncrake etc, I saw a raptor rise up over the road ahead of me. Expecting it to be a Common Buzzard, I was shocked to see long elegant wings and a straight edged tail. A Black Kite!

Black Kite - the rarity structure in Finland, being 381% larger than Ireland, is quite different, with a number of bird recording areas and their own recorders spread out across the country. Species can often have markedly different statuses in different areas of the country, with both Black Kite and Caspian Gull both still submission rarities in this area. Not a bad weekend's haul.


Thrush Nightingale 

It's been a fairly late Spring otherwise, with the various night singing migrants being obviously a couple of weeks late on arrival. 

Good to hear things like Thrush Nightingale and Great Reed Warbler cranking out song now though. 



Great Reed Warbler 

As always, the arrival of Broad-Billed Sandpipers at the end of May/June never fails to disappoint. Stunning little waders. 


Broad-Billed Sandpiper 

I do like finding rares. 😎 Those 3 Megas from Morocco mean I've now found rarities on 4 continents (an interesting stat I thought). Not bad at all. 

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