Weekend and Sanni was at home again, so I had time to visit some place for birding alone. I chose Suomenlinna, because I wanted to see open sea. I took 9am ferry and after 15 minutes I was walking towards the southern end of the island. There was only -1 degrees, but frosty wind did some damage to my fingers, because I made bad decision with my cloves.. Still I spend almost hour and a half watching the sea.
Flocks of Long-tailed Ducks moved around and two White-tailed Eagles waited for a easy meal. Among the Long-tailed Ducks I foudn four Tufted Ducks, some Goldeneyes, two Black Guillemots, lone Smew, six Red-breasted Mergansers, and of course a lots of Common Goosanders.
Of course in winter you don´t have migration, but I still saw one migrating Black-throated Diver! I had to check the bird properly, because this time of the year is possible to see either Yellow-billed or Great-northern Divers too!
At some point I was watching the sea when I heard lots of noisy Crows and I raised my eyes, just to see that there is an Eagle Owl flying away from the island and chased by ten Crows!
I tried to follow the bird but it disappeared behind the rock. Maybe it landed to Vallisaari, which is quite near of Suomenlinna. Anyway, what a moment!
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| Empty Harbor. |
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| My seawatch place. |
Land birds were almost missing today, so I only found a little flock of Fieldfares with one Song Thrush and two Snow Buntings. Most surprising moment was when I was leaving and I noticed weird movement near the shore. I went to look and this monster walked there!
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| American Mink! |
These creatures are one reason for disappearing wildfowl and shorebirds in Finland. I heard that these are quite common here, but this was my first.
After walking back to harbor I noticed that I have still 40 minutes to the next ferry, so I took large cup of coffee and a cookie in nearby cafeteria. Sensory returned in to my fingers again!
Finally the ferry came and I was back in Kauppatori harbor. I noticed a flock of large gulls and I went to photograph them.
This pale and beautiful individual got my eye among the other gulls.
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| What a beauty. |
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| Same bird now standing. |
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| Closeup. |
Others were not even near as interesting as this one.
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| Herring Gull. |
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| Herring Gull. |
Of course the interesting one is a Herring Gull, but beautiful anyway. My inner laridist woke up again.
Great day with great birds. Next week some more stories about my adventures with Vilma.
-Tom
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