10. tammikuuta 2018

Winter birding in Helsinki 9.1.2018

Year 2017 is behind and what a year it was. Many new species and good memories.
I was working on 1st of January and because I´m working near the sea I have change to see birds almost every day. I also cycle to work so that gives me some opportunity to see birds.
While I was cycling I had all kind of common stuff like Blackbirds, Domestic Sparrows, Barnacle Goose, Canada Goose and Mallard.
During my day at work I had Back-headed Gull, Common Gulls, Great Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls, Whoopers Swans and flock of Long-tailed Ducks.
When I went back home, I took a detour and twitched our famous long staying phoenicuroides-race Black Redstart. Sadly bird was found dead later..

Yesterday I had my first day when I had time for birds. I chose Viikki and Vanhankaupunginlahti, because of many good winter birds like Greylag Goose and Great Grey Owl.
When I arrived to Viikki I noticed a flock of Canada Geese resting on a meadow.

With the flock there was this funny looking C-Goose. 

I continued my walking and then I heard Reed Bunting flying above me. Nice start. After some walk I came to Purolahti and there we have nice small birdtower. From there I had Whooper Swans and lone Greylag Goose with bad wing. It will die soon...




My next target was long staying Great Grey Owl from Mölylä area near by. I walked around there, but like for many others, no bird for me. After an hour I kept going towards Fastholma to see wintering Chiffchaff and Nuthatch.

Nuthatch.

Common Chiffchaff.

And again.

As you can see, these photos are horrible.. I have a story for you about these, but that later.
Nice winter birds and actually my first wintertime (Dec-Feb) Chiffchaff ever.
Also lots of Great-spotted Woodpeckers and Goldfinches around. When I was leaving I also heard Winter Wren. I started to walk back to Mölylä when I noticed an alarm message about the Great-Grey Owl from there. I think I was faster after this info.
During my walk I saw a pack of photographers and they had some interesting bird. I saw that they were photographing something and when I raised my binos I saw this.

Pygmy Owl! 
Great bird, but I was in hurry to see the bigger cousin of this furry little ball. I almost ran. I was excited. I was moving like going to have a lifer or something. It was actually quite long way, but finally I aw the bird sitting on a branch.

Great Grey Owl.

It was sitting like this for quite long time and then it found something to eat. I managed to see when it swallowed a small black thing and flew back to another branch.

Great Grey Owl.

I spend about 30 minutes with this amazing Owl and got some awesome footage with my phone and telescope. Taking video through it was surprisingly easy.



What a bird.

When I walked back to bus stop I had another Greylag Goose and 131 Canada Geese in one big flock. It felt like April!

Greylag.

Many new year ticks, two new winter time ticks and lots of fun. I met Kari Haataja, Hannu Palojärvi and some other familiar faces during the day and I hope your day was at least as good as mine was.

About my camera and pictures. I was worried that my camera finally came to it´s end, but NONSENSE! When I took photos of that famous Black Redstart I had to use all in with ISO number and that was still all in yesterday with sunshine and daylight... Fun.

-Tom

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