CES-ringing in Östersundom 29.8.2013

Today i joined Jarkko Santaharju and Roni Väisänen to make some ringing in Helsinki.
We arrived to Östersundom very early, before 6am. First round was very good with about 25 birds or more. Mostly we get Robins but there were also Willow Warblers, some Tits and few Dunnocks.
After few good rounds Roni had to leave to work so me and Jarkko handled the nets rest of the time.
Every round started to be slower and finally clock came to half noon so we took the nets of.
During the day we also heard one Red-breasted Flycatcher and few hundreds of Barnacle Goose flying over the ringing site.
Final count showed quite nice number of birds.

Robin 19 (all 1cy) 4 controls
Dunnock 4 (all 1cy)
Song Thrush 2 (one +1cy and one 1cy)
Lesser Whitethroat 2 (Both +1cy) Quite rare this time to catch adult birds. Most of those are gone already.
Willow Warbler 28 (all 1cy)
Great Tit 3 (1cy) two controls (1cy and +1cy)
Blue Tit 5 (three 1cy and two +1cy)
Siskin 9 (all 1cy)

Robin.

Adult male Blue Tit.

+1cy Lesser Whitethroat.

Dunnock.

Song Thrush.

What a nice day though we had big war against Deer Flys!! Hundreds of those bastards attack against us.. I killed maybe 50 today.
Many thanks to Roni and Jarkko! I really enjoy to join you guys and learn from you. I hope i get ringing licence some day.

-Tomppa

Sabine´s Gull!! 27.8.2013

Today one guy found Sabine´s Gull from Lempäälä near Tampere and after that the bird was found in Vesilahti. Alarm came this morning but bird disappeared soon after that and i quickly twitched Great Snipe from Kyläsaari Helsinki.

After midday new alarm of same bird came and me, Jarkko, Jenni, Roni and Jari decided to twitch the bird. 

Driving to Lempäälä takes about hour and a half but i made it little faster this time :) 

When we arrived we met Petteri Mäkelä there and he recommend a place near us. We walked to the shore and then we get info that bird flew to some field... Nice. Just after that info Roni found the bird flying above us!! It was quite high so it was hard to get any good photos.. 

Bird made some rounds above us and after 5 minutes it took more height and flew far away. Then we realized that how amazingly lucky we were.. Just few minutes and it was gone! 

Bird was adult (+2cy) and second record of this plumage in Finland. In total this was 14th record for Finland, so we had nice and really rare bird there. 

This was nice tick for me and actually Roni was only one who did not get lifer.. Year tick of course.

Here is some photos of the bird. 

The bird. 

Notice wedge in tail which important feature when id these birds.

Again.

In this you can even see the yellow bill tip.

So finally we get something to twitch. I like these trips when you have nice company and good jokes and stuff. 

Thank you guys for company and hope we get more of these in the future. 

Now my year-ticks are 242 and one is waiting for approval, so new record is here! 250, here i come. 

Jari in back round and Jarkko on front.

Next post soon, we have some ringing plans for this week. 

-Tomppa

Slow raptor watch. 25.8.2013

Today i went to watch some raptors with Roni Väisänen. We drove to  Västerkulla which is in the eastern Helsinki. When we arrived we heard Hazel Grouse somewhere in the woods.
Clear sky without any clouds made our job very hard.
In about two hours we had about 20 Sparrow Hawks, two Goshawks, 6 Kestrels, Honey Buzzard, four White-tailed Eagles and two Nutcrackers.
Last one was long waited year-tick for Roni. I had one earlier this year at Vanhankaupunginlahti.
It was nice two hours anyway, so thanks for the company Roni!

My first panorama pic in this blog. Hope it works.

-Tomppa

CES-ringing in Espoo 24.8.2013

Today i joined Roni Väisänen to do some ringing in Laajalahti, Espoo. Roni started at 5:20 am and i came little bit later. It was cold morning!! Only few degrees and after i was in Rome where we had 36 degrees, this felt really cold.
First round was very successful with many birds from the nets and some movement of Yellow Wagtails in the sky. Also few Red-throated Pipits had some movement and we count 5 birds today.
We had nice full house of Sylvia warblers Common Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler and Blackcap. Flock of Siskins found them selves in the net in first round and we got 8 birds today.
Here is some numbers from our 6 hour period.

Willow Warbler 20
Eurasian Reed Warbler 2
Sedge Warbler 11
Garden Warbler 2
Common Whitethroat 2
Lesser Whitethroat 3
Blackcap 2
Robin 2
Siskin 8
Chaffinch 1
Reed Bunting 2

Female Blackcap.

Garden Warbler.

Lesser Whitethroat.

Chaffinch.

Eurasian Reed.

Siskin.

Nice morning we had. Thanks Roni for taking me with you.
Tomorrow we are going to have some raptor watch, so new post tomorrow. I hope.

-Tomppa

Few days in Rome 19-23.8.2013

I spend few days in Rome with Sarina, my brother, sister and mother. Trip was totally vacation so not much bird watching.
Anyway i make one trip to Villa Borghese park where i had some nice species. Short-toed Treecreeper was common, few Firecrests, lots of Crows, RInged Parakeets and Feral Pigeons.

Short-toed Treecreeper.

Firecrest.

Ringed Parakeet.

Most of the time we checked Romes famous places like Coloseum, Forum Romanum, Vatican City and others, but it was nice to see that there was also birds. Yellow-legged Gulls were everywhere! All different age birds 1cy to adult. Collared Flycather in Forum Romanum was nice too.

Juvenile bird.

Lots of Yellow-legged Gulls.

Rome is nice city but it is maybe better to check famous places than watch birds there.

-Tomppa

Another quick summerhouse weekend. 10-11.8.2013

Just came back back home from our Loviisa summerhouse. Only one night but it was very nice to get out of the city and had super food with my father, hes wife Sari and little brother.
I also check had some bird watching around our yard. One Wood Warbler, Chiffchaffs, Common Cranes, Hobbys, Sparrow Hawk, Black Woodpecker and so on.
Not much birding lately but rest of my summer vacation starts next Thursday, so lots of more time then.

Some Sympetrum specie dragonfly. Not sure which one.

White Wagtail.

Chiffchaff. 

Hear you soon.

-Tom

Gull watching in Espoo. 5.8.2013

Today i joined Roni Väisänen when he was working in Ämmässuo dump. We drove around the area and there was maybe few thousand gulls.
Almost two weeks a go Roni and Petteri Lehikoinen found possible Yellow-legged Gull from here and Two days ago Petteri Hytönen found that same Gull! That was in my mind of course. I did not count but we checked many gulls before we found "different" looking bird sitting on a pile of shit.
I got few good photos of the bird and Roni got hes earlier pics so we compare these and it was clearly same bird! Nice Finnish tick for me if RC will accept this great observation. I must still think that this is possible Yellow-legged.
Here is some photos from the dump.

Juvenile Herring Gull.

This Herring Gull had weird ring. Not Finnish. 

And this one got little different bill. 

CFF57

Herring and Baltic Gulls.

Herring and Greater Black-backed Gulls.

And the Yellow-legged.

1cy bird. 

Jump!

What a great day. Thank you Roni for taking me with you. Hope we can make another trip there soon.

-Tomppa

Baby falcons. 2.8.2013

Today Jari Lintaja showed me very nice place where Eurasian Hobbys have their fledglings. Place is in Helsinki and picked Jari from Viikki before noon.
Weather was quite bad.. Cloudy and grey day, even little rain before we arrived. Also we had to take only distant photos because these birds were quite shy, at least this time.
When we arrived to the place there was two juvenile birds sitting in a dry tree, but later there was three juveniles and one adult bird.

Jumping Hobby.

Staring contest!

What are you doing there face. 

I must thank Jari for showing me this place and i´m quite happy with the result.
Now i need to work during the weekend so i hope there´s not any super rarity in Finland that time. :)
However, if somebody must find something, find it in Helsinki area, please!

I wish good weekend to all of you.

-Tomppa