rest of the January 31.1.2020

Finally time to write here... So, a week a go we went to see my mother in law in Asikkala and I had short periods of time to watch some birds there. We walked around Vääksy where normally I have seen Dippers, but not this time. Loads of Mallards in open water spots, but that was basically it. We visited on playground and around that was small flock of Yellowhammers, lone Brambling, some Greater-spotted Woodpeckers and other common birds. I got Jay and Coal Tit to my year list.

On 26th I had time to go and check Salonsaari, near the Vääksy and there I found good numbers of Goldcrests, Greater-spotted Woodpeckers and very mobile and shy Three-toed Woodpecker. Shame that I saw the bird only in flight.. No raptors of any kind in the area and basically without the forest species the place was empty.

Otherwise I have been at work and from there I have had only the most common species like Domestic Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Greenfinch, Bullfinch etc...

Here is few pictures from last week.

Part of the big flock of Domestic Pigeon in Vääksy center.

Partially leucistic Mallard with others.

Bohemian Waxwings in tree. 

This huge Goshawk was sitting in our yards ladder.

It was already dark and raining when I took this photo. Lots of photoshopping...

February is around the corner and it is normally the wort month for birds, but let´s see. High hopes.

-Tom

Black-throated Thrush at Viikki. 19.1.2020

Yesterday afternoon Hannu Savanne found female type Black-throated Thrush from Viikki about 700m from my house. I was anxious to go, but I had both kids, and it was already getting a bit dark. I had to wait until Sanni arrived from work. When she finally came it was too late for me and I had to let it go. Shame cause it was so near.

Today before noon I got info that the bird is still in the area, but hard to catch. My mother visited us and I used her help to twitch this nice sibe vagrant. We took kids, we let them play a bit and then we walked to the scene. Loads of twitchers around and it was easy to find the place where the bird was. Thrush was feeding in a muddy field with about 300 Fieldfares and it was no an easy task to find the bird. My mother took the kids to the near by park and she let me stay with the group. Thank god the bird was found in 10 minutes and I got nice views from telescope.
Lots of familiar faces around and Janne koskinen gave me and opportunity to watch the bird for some time. No photos for me this time, cause the distance and telescope not my own so I had problems to phonescope it. I got one very poor photo, but it is so bad that I´m not going to publish it...

Soon the flock took off and shattered around the area. We tried to watch the small flocks, but local Goshawk made them move constantly and it was also nap time for Julius, so we left.

Great bird and interesting plumage of second calendar year female bird. What I saw looked good for pure bird, but these always lead to discussion about the ID of the bird and I can´t really consider me as an expert of anything. I have seen this species now five times in Finland and at least one of those were hybrid bird. More photos of the bird in www.tarsiger.com front page.

Few photos from the day.

Great-spotted Woodpecker.

The field where the Thrush was.

Male Bullfinch. 

Oh yeah, I also took my first bird photos with my new Sony Rx10 mark IV and it is amazing camera. Can´t wait to have more light and more birds. I changed my Panasonic gear to this one.

More birds later, I hope.

Tom 

NewYear, new birds. 9.1.2020

Hello, It is already 9th of January and this is my first post for the year.
Not much happened since the last post from 2019, but on 6th I had great opportunity to twitch one of my favorite birds of all time, the Yellow-billed Loon.
Sami Tuomela found this amazing 2cy bird from Lauttaaari and I was stuck at home with my kids. We had plans to go and pick up my wife from work and then have some quality time with Sannis brother and his family. Luckily they live close the place where the bird was hanging, so we had short detour at Hernesaari and then we wen to their place.

We arrived after three pm and it started to be little dark. I took my telescope and ran to the place where I aw few other birders. Thank god the bird was still there and I was able to see it nice from distance. It was diving actively and moved constantly. After I had even one poor photo (see bellow) I ran to my car, picked Julius and stroller but when we arrived again the bird was gone.. It dived and then nobody saw it again before we left.

Anyway I got nice new bird to my Helsinki list and to my local birding society list too. My only record of this species in Finland was from Säppi island back in 2014.
On 7th I had small flock of Two-barred Crossbills from Meilahti where I work and earlier this month I had Eagle Owl from same place.

Nice to have some good birds around Helsinki and I was thinking that I will do some kind of not so hardcore big year in Helsinki and try to see as many species as possible here.
Here is my terrific photo of the Diver...

This photo is even worse than my Great-nothern Diver photo from last year.. Anyway distance was over 500m! 

January is going to be very low in birding cause my wife is working all the weekend and I have the kids. On Saturday I will go and got my new camera Sony RX10 IV, which sholud be very good piece of work.

-Tom