Finally something to write here.. I have been at work most of the summer and my bird watching time has been very limited.
In June and July i twitched some really nice rarities here in Finland, but that was all my birding activity. Raised my Finnish list to 311! I spend two weekends in two different summerhouses and i had one very unsuccessful twitching trip to Liminka.
Yesterday i joined Markus Lampinen and Tomas Swahn and we drove to Kujala waste station to check some gulls. Earlier i saw two White-winged Crossbills in our backyard.
We arrived there quite late and soon we noticed that there is not much gulls in the area. We drove around the place and checked every gull for possible Caspian or even something better.
Finally at Bio-center we found interesting bird which had Caspian features.
I took several pics of the bird before it flew away. There was some pics of the same looking bird in tarsiger.com so we compared those and the bird was same! Anyway nice find, even though someone found it before us. Later we spotted the same gull again and i got some decent flying pics of it.
For my eye, it does not look classic Caspian Gull, but i´m not an expert.
Here is some photos of the bird.
We also had this very cool looking intermedius/heuglini/graelsii Lesser Black-backed Gull. In my opinion, this is 3cy bird. God i like this LBBG group!
About 200 gulls in the area and we found two very nice birds. I was very happy,
Next week is annual Estonian Open bird race in Estonia, and our team is going there again.
More story from there, later here.
Tom
In June and July i twitched some really nice rarities here in Finland, but that was all my birding activity. Raised my Finnish list to 311! I spend two weekends in two different summerhouses and i had one very unsuccessful twitching trip to Liminka.
 |
| Pied Flycatcher male, Hartola. |
Yesterday i joined Markus Lampinen and Tomas Swahn and we drove to Kujala waste station to check some gulls. Earlier i saw two White-winged Crossbills in our backyard.
We arrived there quite late and soon we noticed that there is not much gulls in the area. We drove around the place and checked every gull for possible Caspian or even something better.
Finally at Bio-center we found interesting bird which had Caspian features.
I took several pics of the bird before it flew away. There was some pics of the same looking bird in tarsiger.com so we compared those and the bird was same! Anyway nice find, even though someone found it before us. Later we spotted the same gull again and i got some decent flying pics of it.
For my eye, it does not look classic Caspian Gull, but i´m not an expert.
Here is some photos of the bird.
 |
| Upper side of the bird. |
 |
| Under wing photo. |
 |
| Only photo on the ground |
We also had this very cool looking intermedius/heuglini/graelsii Lesser Black-backed Gull. In my opinion, this is 3cy bird. God i like this LBBG group!
 |
| LBBG. |
Next week is annual Estonian Open bird race in Estonia, and our team is going there again.
More story from there, later here.
Tom
Great finds! It would have been cooler if you had been with those would-be white-winged crossbills a bit longer, just so you have gotten a clearer view and some more pictures. But you take what you can get sometimes. Anyway, these are really good pictures. Cheers!
VastaaPoistaLucille Foster @ The George Hotel At Cley