Still lots of birds, 4.10.2012

My day started at 5:15am when Jari showed me Awesome Pygmy Owl! I took few photos and continued my sleep.
Constant watch started again at 7:45 and twhen i arrived to the bunker, Aatu was normally there before me. Migration was good from the beginning, mostly Chaffinches and Siskins.
Sparrow Hawks had still movement, but not so much as yesterday.

Pygmy Owl.

Wind came stronger all the time and after constant watch, some times there were hard to stay in the bunker.
Best bird for the day came from net when Tatu catch Nuthach! Nice bird indeed.

European Nuthach race Europae, female. 

Today´s weather was little bit bad when compare last few days, wind and then after 3pm rain started...
luckily we did hard work before it and here is some numbers from today´s watch.

Sparrow Hawk, 181
Common Buzzard, 5
Peregrine, 1
Woodpigeon 6576
Wood Lark 22
Blue Tit 574
Chaffinch 4392
Brambling 1443
Siskin 1575

White-tailed Eagle.

Honey Buzzard.

Woodpigeons had good day.

As you can see, Woodpigeon was most numerous bird today. Photos are bad because of poor light conditions and my poor tele-objective :)
In the end, i have to congratulate my good friend Petteri Mäkelä today. He saw 400th specie today for he´s finish list. Syke´s Warbler is great rarity and it´s good milestone specie. This Warbler was found by Gustav Nordensvan yersterday from Söderskär island, southern Finland. Great work both of you guys.
I think more stuff about the Syke´s can found in Petteris blog http://himopointsaaja.blogspot.fi/

Hope there is some moments with out rain tomorrow and we can see even few birds.

best.

-Tomppa-

Good migration in Hanko, 3.10.2012

This day started nicely when Tatu had Short-eared Owl from the net and we had opportunity to photo this awesome bird!
Our constant watch started today at 7:45am. I went to the bunker and Aatu was there already when i arrived. Other guys were at the nets again so we had responsibility of the watch first.
Passerines started slowly but soon migration was good and nice numbers were counted. Sparrow Hawks had some movement again and numbers were almost same as yesterday. Most numerous specie was Siskin and then Blue Tit, Chaffinch and Great Tit. One Rough-legged Buzzard flew south.
Tatu had most of the headlands nets and some times i had time to train with him. We had nice numbers of Blue Tits, Long-tailed Tits, Jays, Goldcrests and some other birds.

Short-eared Owl if funny looking bird!

Sparrow Hawks, 1cy and +1cy Male.

Jay, sitting on a tree.

Like yesterday, Dick Forsman came to station and i hope he had nice hours in the area, also there was some group of 20 people visiting here today so we had nice traffic here today. We had one Peregrine but sadly big group did not saw it.
I was hanging with Dick or with Tatu most of the afternoon and we had Little Woodpecker from the net and maybe the highlight of the day. Jari started to yell something about Eagle and finally i heard "Golden Eagle coming from north!!!"
Dick found it immediately and me and Tatu just seconds after that.
Bird were just gliding towards us and we waited it like little boys wait their weekly candy. Gorgeous Eagle came above us and we had nice shots about it! What a super bird!

2cy Golden Eagle. What a super bird!

Little Woodpecker.

One of the many Long-tailed Tits.

Here is some numbers of the migrating birds for today.

Golden Eagle, 1 2cy
Peregrine Falcon, 1
Sparrow Hawk, 217
Merlin, 2
Rough-legged Buzzard, 1 S
Chaffinch, 4144
Siskin, 5697
Blue Tit, 1086
Great Tit, 103
Jay, 187
Nutcracker, 5
Barn Swallow, 35
Meadow Pipit, 210
Woodpigeon, 284
Linnet, 55
Redpoll 14


So, as you can see, or read, this was nice day here in Hanko bird-station. Let+s still hope that tomorrow will be better.
Rare birds are rare but i have lot´s of hope for that. Owl rounds will continue normally, so maybe i have more Owl photos tomorrow.

Later, Jari bring me this beauty :)

Tengmalm´s Owl, 1cy.

Best.

-Tomppa-

Good day in Bird-station. 2.10.2012

Like i said yesterday, we had some owl nets on last night and we caught 4 Tengmalm´s Owls! First came at 11pm when we did first round. After that we had 3.30am round with Jari but nothing in the nets that time.

First Tengmalm´s. 

Here we have constant watch and today it started at 7.35am. Aatu and me went to the bunker and other guys had their ringing.
Markus Varesvuo came to the bunker for a day trip. It was nice to meet him finally.
Soon we noticed that today was good for Sparrow Hawks, but passerine migration was very slow...
We tried to photo some Sparrow Hawks and other birds with Markus and Jari came to the bunker quite soon.
When Tatu had two Tengmalm´s Owls last night, one of those went trees behind our sauna and Jari found it there.
Me, Markus and Jari went there and Owl was still sitting in the tree. We had nice photo session with the Owl and after other went back to the bunker, Dick Forsman came and he wanted also take some photos of the Owl.
I stayed with Dick and we had nice conversation about Israel, Eastern Honey Buzzards and other things.

This one was just watching us. 

We went back to the bunker and continued our Sparrow Hawk photo mission.
Also Eurasian Jays had nice movement and there was big flocks of those. We had some Jays also from the nets so we got close contact with this weird specie.
While people were talking, i saw weird looking bird flying above the woods and i yelled something like "what a hell is that bird"! Dick said immediately that it´s 1cy Long-tailed Skua!! Very nice bird here and not even annually here in hanko i guess.
Bird flew straight to west and disappeared after 5min. This was new specie for me in Finland so it tasted even more sweeter this time! Markus got some nice photos about the bird but i can´t put those here, sorry.
Here is some pics from the bunker.

Nutcracker in flight.

1cy Sparrow Hawk

And another youngster got ring from Jari.

I was helping guys in the nets also and most of the birds what i took of and checked were Goldcrest so here is photo of one.

1cy Male is handsome looking bird. 

Thanks for our day-trip guys Markus and Dick for company and hope we meet soon again.
Here is some migration number s from today:
Sparrow Hawk, 211
Merlin, 5
Peregrine 1 local
Jay, 113
Nutcracker, 4
Black Woodpecker 3 locals
Long-tailed Skua 1, 1cy 11:55-11:59 W
Chaffinch 543
Brambling 17
Siskin 880

We have Owl rounds tonight again so let´s see what tonight brings.

Best.

-Tomppa-

Start. 1.10.2012

I drove to Hanko today and my destination was Hanko bird-station.
I have 7day period here so i will update every day if it´s possible.. Hope so!
My drive was quite quick and because of rain, there wasn´t many birds in the air. I had about 1000 flock of Chaffinches, one Merlin, few Sparrow Hawks and one Common Buzzard. So not much..
After grocery store, i arrived to the station where Jari, Aatu, Tatu, Ohto and Teemu had well deserved siesta, after long day.
There´s no much to otell about this day because i just came here, but let´s hope we get some Owls tonight. Last night these guys had 18 Tengmalm´s Owls!

Our nice station.

From the bunker.

Let´s see what tomorrow brings to us.

Best

-Tomppa-