April Migration

It's been a busy month so far with some decent birding highlights.

We started out with a birthday present of a long weekend at Hanko.

Early Spring, with the ice recently left the sea, meant good numbers of Eider on the move, as well as the first Oystercatchers and Ringed Plovers back in.

Highlights from the trip included Rock Pipits (a species I've only seen once before in Finland) and my first Finnish Black Guillemot (a species which is relatively easy to see offshore from Helsinki, but I've never bothered to look for previously). 

The best came in the form of a seawatch male King Eider from Vedagrundet. I've seen a few of these beauties since living here, but this was my first self found bird. 

We also had a couple of Room on the trip, just knocking around the town. Always a scarce migrant on the south coast. 





Rook - 2CY - at the rarity Mecca of LIDL.


The first Caspian Terns, always the first terns to return, have been putting on good shows, especially at my old patch of Laajalahti.






Caspian Tern - The king of Terns.




The first few Redshank, Snipe, Green Sandpiper and Little Ringed Plover also made their return, with a large flock of staging Smew in situ.


Little Ringed Plover


Smew 

The Slavonian Grebes have also returned, putting on a great show at Suomenoja.





Slavonian Grebes - those amazing eyes!


Dancing Slavs. Amazing looking birds.


The garden has been quite productive over the past few weeks, adding birds like Pintail to the garden list, with the star of the show being a male Pallid Harrier!



Smew from the garden. Always a decent bird here and early to boot, usually not appearing until autumn.


Whilst Rough-Legged Buzzard migration has been enjoyable over the past week.


Rough-Legged Buzzard

Here's to more great raptors over the next few weeks.

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