Autumn 2025 - Latvia and Early Winter

It wouldn't be Autumn without a yank, and a Pectoral Sandpiper appearing on Laajalahti, one of my regular sites, fit the bill nicely.




Pectoral Sandpiper - significantly rarer in Finland than Ireland 


With the ski holidays upon us, we decided to do a family trip to Latvia, as a change from Estonia.

A child bourne plague descended upon me at the outset of the trip, and I spent the entire drive from Tallinn to Riga shivering and unable to control my body temperature. 

The other family members wanted nothing to do with me and my contagion, so I was often dumped on the beach for the first few days. Suits me!


The Beaches of Riga bay were beautiful 

I spent my time watching Gulls, seeing my first Mediterranean Gull (a first winter) for years, and enjoying Caspian Gulls in far better numbers than Finland.









Caspian Gull - First Winter - I think these may be the most beautiful Caspian Gull Photos I have ever taken, of what I must say is a stunning individual.









Caspian Gull - 2CY - This bird hung around the beach for several days and was exceptionally tame and vocal. A real joy to get to grips with. 






Caspian Gull - 2CY - Video grabs of that spectacular tail and primary pattern


Little Gull - big numbers of these moving through.


I also got to visit Getlini Dump in Riga. Unfortunately there is no longer access into the dump, and indeed security can be a bit of a nuisance actually. 

Nonetheless I managed good numbers of Caspian Gulls viewing from the outside, with some 20+ individuals of various ages classes.







Caspian Gulls - 1st Winters






Some other ages of Casp

A real shame on no access. Would have sold a kidney to get in amongst all these birds.


The other targets on the trip were woodpeckers.

And we saw many. Middle-Spotted Woodpecker were everywhere, including in the garden where we were staying. White-backed was encountered in swampy areas and a couple of well known parks in the area. Lesser Spotted and Black Woodpecker were also easy and I even managed a single Three-Toed Woodpecker and Green Woodpecker (I reckon it's at least 15 years since I encountered Green Woodpecker).

These didn't really play ball for digiscoping unfortunately, but we're brilliant birds nonetheless.

Other birds which did pose for the scope included Nuthatch and Pygmy Owl.





Nuthatch 





Pygmy Owl - 2 birds singing off against each other in flooded forest made for excellent viewing



We saw loads of good birds in Latvia, including various seaduck such as Velvet Scoter and Long Tailed Duck, but stand outs were things like numerous Great White Egret, Red-Crested Pochard and Marsh Tit.


Great White Egret - not sure I have ever seen them so tame.



Red-Crested Pochard - they're a nice duck when you don't have to worry about fence hoppers.


Great Grey Shrike - very good numbers of these this autumn

On the way back, I took in another dump, east of Tallinn. Again, no access here (a shame because there were hundreds of gulls). I did manage to pick up one Caspian before security moved me on.


Caspian Gull - 1st Winter 

Back on the Finnish side of the water, my garden Nutcracker have been performing very well, present all day every day.



Nutcracker 

We also managed to find a day roosting Tawny Owl in the garden which game sublime views.


Tawny Owl




We have been experiencing some notable influxes, particularly Hume's Warbler and Oriental Turtle Dove, both species I managed to connect with.

I twitched a Hume's Warbler at Lauttasaari, but managed to find my own individual in Helsinki city whilst trying to see a Pallas's Warbler. 

Sadly both birds were skulkers, but this Goshawk was nice and showy.


Goshawk 

A meena Oriental Turtle Dove on the Eastern side of Helsinki was a relatively easy twitch and brought back good memories of the one on Cape Clear. 😎








Oriental Turtle Dove - a really distinctive bird, but that said, I wonder how many meena like this have gone unnoticed in Ireland. Not quite as obvious as orientalis.


A Great Grey Shrike kept watch on the twitch the whole time.




On the way home I stopped off to get my first Hawk Owl of the season. You gotta make time for the best bird in the universe.











Hawk Owl - what a bird!




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

The IRBC - Spooftocracy

Image
Decided to start a fresh tracking of the IRBC faileptitude as the previous post was now enormous. Like those who tracked Trump's golfing or Musk's private jet use...transparency, fact and truth matter.  And the only place you are going to find it in regards to Europe's most ridiculous excuse for a rarity committee is right here. (Well...apart from that single posting on a closed WhatsApp group from Seamus Feeney...cos ya gotta love Irony right? 🤣) Where did we leave off?  July 2024 It's now August 2024. So let's look at Ireland's excuse for a rarity recording system. Do they produce monthly provisional lists as per their own system outline? - No Did they sneakily change the wording on their website from "Monthly" to "Regular"? - Yes Do they even produce this regularly? - No Do they update the Irish list after the publication of each Irish Rare Bird Report? - No Are you lucky if that happens once a decade? - Oh dear, No. After announcing that...
Read more

Pallas's Warbler - Blast From The Past Finds

Image
I've said it many times.  You're nothing in birding if you've never found a Pallas's Warbler . Nothing I tells ya! 😉 There is no gem so iconic in birding, as Pallas's Warbler . Their image saturates every autumn round up you've ever seen.  Just seeing one is a rare treat, but finding one, ahh.... that's the stuff! 13.11.2011 My first self found bird fell on the 13th of November at Power Head, Cork. Power Head had been doing exceptionally well that autumn, with several scarce migrants, several rarities ( Rose-colored Starling etc), and no less than 2 juv Pallid Harrier taking up residence in the harrier roost there. As myself and Conor Foley settled in for the evening wait for these harriers, stood on a stone wall with Aidan Duggan, we were suddenly struck by a "chu-ing" call from the adjacent garden.  Myself and Conor looked at each other in shock. "Did you hear that?" "That sounded like Pallas's " I said. Aidan Duggan s...
Read more