November birding in Estonia and Finland.

Spend last weekend in Estonia with my uncle Jände, but i really don´t have much to tell about the birds there. We had two days and quickly we noticed that place is quite empty...
Little sea watch both mornings gave us few hundred Velvet Scoters, some Divers, Red-necked Grebe and huge numbers of local Long-tailed Ducks. About 15000 in one flock wintering in western Estonia.
Best bird this time was gull, like it is quite often these days. We were in Dirhami harbor and Jände noticed a gull with color ring. Code 42P2 in red ring did not tell much for us but also the bird looked interesting. After nice documentation photos we were quite sure that this bird must be Caspian Gull.
I checked internet little bit and found program in Poland which uses this kind of rings.
So i send our record to Poland and today i got e-mail that this bird is really Caspian Gull. It was ringed last May as a nestling and now it has moved over 1000km to Estonia. What a great find!

Under wing and ring showing nicely. 

Caspian Gull.

Wings and tail showing nicely. 

So this bird saved our trip. Thanks Jände for company. Always pleasure.

Today i went to my "local patch" Seurasaari with my girlfriend Sanni. I wanted to show her some Owls. Yesterday there was Tawny, Pygmy, Ural and Eagle Owl!
This time we saw Eagle Owl which was found by some other guy and we were just lucky to be right place in the right time.

Mighty Eagle Owl resting. 

Never get bored with these birds! Not much other birds today.. Black Woodpecker was calling few times, few Great-spotted Woodpeckers, Jay, Tufted Duck, Canada Geese etc..

Coal Tit.

Tufted Duck.

Shame that weather was so cloudy, but we had great fun.

Let´s hope more birds will show up and i have something to write here. I promise that next post will come sooner than next year.

-Tom-