Black-winged Pratincole in Helsinki 25.8.2016

At 24th of August some birders found Black-winged Prantincole from Vanhankaupunginlahti, Helsinki. This great bird was still missing from my lifer list so with my uncle Jände we went to twitch it next morning before work.
We arrived very early to Viikki and after 20 minute walk we came to the birdtower where we started to look at the bay. It was foggy morning, but we got alarm that other side of the bay had already seen the bird! Finally after 15 long minutes Jände said "There!" I had only my boniculars, but htat was enough. I found the bird flying around the bay and it showed the black under parts of the wing and there was not any white on the wing. Great bird, great morning and good company.

Vanhankaupunginlahti. Bird was flying somewhere there! 

Thanks for the company Jände and Kari Lindblom, who was in the tower with us!

-Tom

Ringing in Espoo 23.8.2016

Markus Lampinen took me with him to do some ringing in Espoo. I´m always ready for ringing session and I have always been very interested about getting birds in hand.
We spend six hours there and got over 100 birds. Can´t remember the numbers of the species etc after this long time, but here is collage of photos. During the ringing we got also Great-white Egret and some Red-breasted Pipits flying around.

Tree Pipit.

Marsh Warbler.

Sedge Warbler.

Common Rosefinch.

Reed Bunting.

Juvenile Red-backed Shrike.

Adult male Red-backed Shrike.

Spotted Flycatcher.

Lesser Whitethroat.

Thank you Markus Lampinen and Tomas Swahn for the company!

-Tom

Estonian Open 2016

So, our legendary team was participating to the Estonian Open bird race again on 13th of August. This time in our team MuoviLabaJengi  was Teppo Lehtola, Pasi Alanko and me.
Almost the whole race time was rainy and windy, so total species count was quite low.
Maybe the hardest race where I have ever been. I was totally wet after we got back to our hotel where we had the race ending ceremonies.
In Estonian open you have basic list 120 species and this time nobody didn´t got even near the full basic list.
I knew that we picked some goodies during the day and I was positively surprised when we noticed that we are going to be at fourth place! Very good job!

Here is few photos and the results.

Sanderling and Ringed Plover.

Great White Egret.

Käina Bay.

Distant Red-necked Phalaropes.

Here are the results, despite the date these are the real ones.

Thanks for the company Pasi and Teppo! Great fun like always.

-Tom

Late July summerhousing. 27-29.7.2016

Only few months late.
We had very pleasant weekend in our summerhouse at the end of the July. Only an hour drive from home and you can enjoy nature and silence. With the baby? No way.
This time I tried to take photos of Butterflies and Dragonflies because the place is much better for those. Of course some birding, but I didn´t left the backyard.

Here is some photos from the weekend.

Yellow-winged Darter.

Yellow-winged Darter.

Idas Bluet.

Second brood Map

Essex Skipper.

Black-tailed Skimmer.

Peacock Butterfly

Common Bluet in tandem.

Lesser Purple Emperor.

Common Darter.

Some of the Dragonflies could be wrong here, because I´m just a starting my hobby with these.
From birds I could mention some Ospreys, Black Woodpecker, Arctic Terns etc.
Great fun with the family.

-Tom