Summer's End

After seeing Sociable Plover, Summer went pretty well with some nice birds popping up. 

Viikki, on the eastern side of Helsinki, has amazingly been the best location around for Caspian Gulls this season, with several frequenting a small waste centre there.






Caspian Gull




Of the several that have been here, this is the only individual I have managed to connect with this Juv season (though I have seen it again subsequently). My usual haunts in Tampere and Lohja have been unproductive in this regard. 

Arguably bird of the Autumn for me so far (after the Sociable Plover) has been this Juv Black Stork. 








Black Stork - a species I've always adored. And one I haven't encountered since Israel in 2015! A mega in Finland, it would normally be picked up in a Viz-Mig scenario, moving at height from some watchpoint. A bird on the deck, conveniently located along the route to our summer house was too good to pass up. 





Garganey - it was also nice to find a Juv Garganey whilst twitching the stork. A very scarce species here in Finland, and this was my first Juv here.


Pallid Harrier season then came around and as usual I put an effort into finding some. 


Pallid Harrier - Laajalahti

I had been checking my usual sites for these, without success. My first came from just a quick one hour stop of at Laajalahti when, trying to get on a perched White-Tailed Eagle, I came across this orange beauty sat in the grass. It performed well the whole evening. 

This wasn't to be my last however, finding quite a few others over the past few weeks, including four juvs together at one point, which was a bit mental!







Pallid Harrier - Ya gotta Love the Pallids



Another top bird for me, was a self found Finnish tick in the form of a Juv. Dark morph Long-Tailed Skua. 

Driving along on a stormy, windy morning, hoping the weather had forced Pallids to drop at Saltfjarden (it had, that was the day I had 4), I picked up a dark bird soaring over the fields to my left. 

What was it? Some Falcon? I pulled in, raised my bins and was flabbergasted to see it was a Skua... more than that, a Long-Tailed Skua!! 













Long-Tailed Skua

Long-Tailed Skua is a species which breeds in Finnish Lapland, but that's 1300 kilometres away. 

They are Scarce enough even in the Baltic, but an inland bird is rare as hen's teeth. 

I haven't seen an inland bird since my early teens, when myself an Ciarán Smyth had one do much the same thing in Ashbourne.

I managed another visit to Viikki for Caspian Gull, the same pale bill spotted bird, present on the same roof.





Caspian Gull

This times there was also a nice, late, Juv Baltic Gull. 


Baltic Gull - Juv

Otherwise, it's just been nice to enjoy general Autumn migration and colour, with birds like Woodlark staging at the usual sites, reasonable numbers and views of things like Red-Throated Pipits, and Black Grouse etc. 



Woodlark 


Red-Throated Pipits

Some decent highlights. Let's see if the usual late October/November season brings another mega or two.




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