Earlier this week I made two nice trips to Vanhankaupunginlahti and got loads of new species to my year list. Both times my kids were with me. On 13th evening I twitched Pied Avocet from same place, here is a poor record shot. Distant bird from the tower. There is about one record in Helsinki area every year, but more in places like Hanko or Kirkkonummi.
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| Record shot of a Pied Avocet. |
14th I had nice walk around our local area with my kids, we saw Linnets, Hobbys and some other common birds.
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| Linnet. |
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| Red Squirrel. |
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| Partially leucistic Blackbird. Funny looking freak of nature. |
Yesterday 15th, I had half day trip planned with my uncle Jände. We met at Emäsalo, in Porvoo and I was hoping the migrtion day of the lifetime, of course. Place is good for sea watching. Well, today was not the day I was hoping, but at least we had few Black-throated and Red-throated Divers, two Arctic Skuas, Caspian Tern and some Common Scoters. In one hour we were pretty sure that it is better leave now and find other places to see birds.
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| At least the weather was nice. |
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| Sunrise. |
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| Common Eiders. |
We dropped my car to Porvoo and then continued with Jände´s car to lake Kanteleenjärvi in Pukkila. There was record of two Black terns earlier this week, but we didn´t saw anything like that. First we drove around the lake and at one point Jände stopped and said something about possible Montagu´s Harrier flying near by. We jumped out of the car and indeed there it was, a adult male Montagu´s Harrier!
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| Adult male Monty. Nice scarcity here in Finland. |
Other birds worth to mention from this spot were male Garganey, three Marsh Harriers and my first Whinchat for the year.
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| Male Pheasant near the lake. |
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| Kanteleenjärvi lake. |
Very nice visit. Next we drove back to Porvoo and from there we moved to Vantaa to twitch a local Lesser-spotted Eagle. Bird was hiding and we had to wait about 40 minutes before it took of and showed it self to us. During the wait we had migrating White Stork, which is always a nice bird to see in Finland. When the Eagle took off, quickly became clear that it is not Lesser-spotted. Bird looked pretty good for juvenile 2cy Greater-spotted Eagle. I´m not any kind of expert of raptors, but even I noticed this. Later Dick Forsman said that it is possibly a hybrid, but there is no photos good enough to confirm this.
Here is my set.
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| White Stork. |
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| White Stork. |
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| Possible Greater-spotted Eagle. |
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| From above. |
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| Same. |
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| And again. |
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| Very bad light for photographing. |
What ever it is, it is interesting bird. Pretty soon it started to take some height and continued it journey towards South.
When I came home the same bird was found from Vanhankaupunginlahti and later it continued East. It was also seen from Vuosaari.
What a great day with great species. Thanks Jände for the company and Jari, it was nice to see you again in Vantaa!
At the evening we got unexpected message into our alarm system. New species for Finland! White-throated Robin aka White-throated Irania was found from Kemiönsaari, only 2 hour drive from Helsinki! I made some plans if the bird would be relocated from the site, but no luck this morning (16th)... Only finder and her daughter saw the bird, I think. Dream come true kind of species!
Til next time.
-Tom
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