First day in Israel. 13.4.2012

I arrived this morning at the Tel-Aviv airport with Jände and Esko. After security checks and other garbage, we get our car and started our journey.
First birds were Common Mynas, Palm Doves and Yellow-vented Bulbuls of course. Today i´m too tired to tell everything but we watch birds in many places, like Mghan Michael, "jersey valley", Meron Mountain and so on.

Maghan Michael highlights were flock of Mongooses and many Night Herons. Mostly place was empty and silence. Graceful Prinia was maybe the commonest one..

Pied Kingfisher. We saw something like 25 birds.

Common Mynah.

Mongoose guy.

Adult Night Heron. Such a great looking bird.

This one wasn´t so lucky.. :( 

After Maghan Michael we drove to the Jersey Valley, witch is not the right name to this place but i don´t remember it...
Highlights were 12 Short-toed snake Eagles, 2 Great-spotted Cuckoo. We saw good numbers of Kestrels and Black Kites. Also 15 White Storks were flying over the fields.

Great-spotted Cuckoos are super birds!

Some ugly guy.

Last place was Meron Mountain, and this visit was actually only a place checking visit. There is maybe few pairs of Olive-three Warblers later, so it´s important to know where the place is.
Of course we didn´t saw these magical birds this time. but place was not empty.
Maybe 20 Black Birds were singing and one Sardinian Warbler were also active.

Total specie count is something like 83 but i check it later and tomorrow i put some numbers.
More pics and good jokes and bad stuff later tomorrow.

Best.

-Tomppa-

Finally success! 4.4.2012

Today i decided to go to Viikki where Great Grey Owl has been many days.
If you had read my blog before, you can see that i didn´t make it last time.
I promised to Sarina that i pick up her at work and give her a ride to Pasila train station. I did my duty and after that i started to drive toward Viikki.
I parked my car and quickly checked feeding place near parking lot. After few Black Birds and Blue Tits i continued my walking to the place where bird was seen earlier today. I met few birders and they gave me info that bird is sitting on the lowest tree branch very near by.
I reach the place soon and i saw the Owl sitting.
I went little bit closer and start to take photos.

Nice face.

Super bird!

Face again.

So finally SUCCESS! This was lifer for me so i was very happy!
After i enjoy this moment with Owl about 10minutes and gave it to sleep on.
I was little bit worried also. Bird let out a really close, just checked me and then turned it´s head..
Hope it can prey on and everything is okay in other ways. Many Owls died when they migrate to the south.

Best.

-Tomppa-

Estonia 1.4.2012

This morning we started super early... 04:15 up and after quick coffee we drove towards the Puhatu swamp.
We met our Estonian reinforcements (Margus, Mariliis and Hannes). They knew the place where Willow Grouses should be. Walking was quite long, about 3,5km and Matti had to carry me across the river because i had too low boots!

Puhatu swamp area.

We reached the main area where some people heard Grouses last time. Really only birds witch were loud, were the Black Grouses.. We counted about 10 different sounds but no Willow Grouse...
After 1h45min standing and listening started to get really cold.. Temperature was something like -10 decrees and sun was rising very fast.
We gave up soon and decided to go. Estonians were still to listen.
When we walked back, we saw few Black Grouses but that´s all.. Also we saw Bear tracks in the snow.

Black Grouse.

We drove back to the hotel, packed our bags and ate a nice breakfast. Hotels yard was again good place, and familiar Nuthaches, and Tits were present.
After we had drove something like 5km we noticed female Capercaillie right side of the road. It jumped to the air but i get some super poor images trough the windshield..

Capercaillie flying.

After this nice species, we decided to leave this forest area and try to watch some fields.
We drove about hour without stopping and some one saw nice big field full of birds.
There was many species of waterfowl. Whooper Swans, Common Shelducks, Teals, and about 8000 Geese.
most of the Geese was Bean Goose but there was also Canada Gooses and Greater White-Fronted Gooses.
Most of the passerines where Skylarks, Gold Finches and Linnets. I didn´t count Lapwings but about 150 is good number. Maybe best sighting was 3 Red Foxes! Those predators tried to get Geese liver in their lunch table.

Bean Gooses in the field. 

Fox.

Shelducks and Whooper Swans.

After this place we continued our driving and didn´t actually stopped before Tallin... We saw few flocks of Geese but that was all..

Best bird in Tallin.

Our ship departed at 4pm and just after ship started it´s way, there was somebody got scene of a serious illness so we get back and it took something like 1h50min before we were able to continued..
This was very nice trip and thanks to Matti and Saara and Jände.
No new ticks this time, but nice birds and great places.

Best.

-Tomppa-

Estonia 30-31.3.2012

Members of this journey was Jände, Saara, Matti and me my self and i.
We left at two o´clock by ship towards the Estonia. After we arrived to Tallin, we start our long drive to Eastern Estonia. After some urban birds like Feral Pigeon, House Sparrow and so on, first real birds were Common Buzzard and Linnet and few flock of Geese. We stopped for couple of times when we saw some geese resting in the fields. Best place was in Lambasaare, or at least there was the name of the bus stop.
We had 1100 Bean Goose, 400 Greater White-Fronted Goose, one Pink-Footed Goose, one Barnacle Goose, 10 Tundra Swans and 2 Common Teals. When we watched this flock, we noticed that sun was setting and we needed to continue our drive. Just before we arrived at the hotel i saw lonely male Black Grouse flying across the road. Our hotel was Villa-Marika, very nice and WARM place.

Little flock of Geese, maybe Bean ones.

Next morning we started quite early(6.45) Hotel manager had little feeding for birds just out side the door and there was surprisingly many species. Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Crested Tits, Willow Tits, Coal Tits and Great Tits.

Willow Tit.

European Nuthatch in he´s / She´s doorway.

Super photo of Crested Tit. Great looking bird anyway..

After very nice breakfast, we started to drive around the area and tried to find some good Owls. Of course Owls were hiding... Our main target was Puhatu swamp whitch is maybe the only place where you can see Willow Grouse in Estonia.
We start at the East-side but after 30min walking we realized that there is too much water, so no entry this side..
Best sightings were Three-Toed Woodpecker, Crested Tits, Black Woodpeckers and Great Spotted Woodpecker.
We continued and next stop was West-side of the Puhatu swamp. There was one Woodcock, few Common Buzzards and one White-Tailed Eagle. We didn´t find the right way to swamp area so quite quickly we left..

Common Buzzard in the morning light.

Next place was little bit more culture, but it was actually good birding place. We visited at the Kuremäe monastery where lives only nuns. Place is superb looking and i was even happier when i noticed big bird feeding with lots of seed eaters. I counted: Nuthatch 3, Redpoll 15, Siskin 40, Green Finch 30, Bullfinch 10, Tree Sparrow 10.

After i had take something like 100 frames, one nun came to said that photographing the birds is forbidden. Weird but then i realized, feeding was front of their houses, so i stopped.
After monastery we toured many places and our best birds was Snow Bunting 15 and at least 10 Common Buzzard, witch is good number at this time of year.

Many roads looks like this because of melting snow.

We drive back to the hotel about 7pm and after eating and trash talking we take little night tour with big Owl hopes. 1h30min and total silence.. Okay, Black Birds were singing...

I hope that i have tome to write last post tomorrow. Sorry that i don´t have pic of this monastery, but i didn´t find my USB-cable for my phone where the photo is. So maybe later.

Best

-Tomppa-