Last day of February 28.2.2014

Today i decided to go out without any excuses. I ended my nigh shift and because i don´t have car i had to use buss and tram to get my ass to Vanhankaupunginlahti.
It was almost dark when i arrived but i was hopeful that even the Dipper would show if i have little patience.
Well, it did not..
I continued walking and first year-tick was Siskin. How embarrassing! Its almost March and i got my first Siskin today.. Soon i arrived to forest which is normally very good for woodpeckers. Fist bird i saw after Blue and Great Tit was Black Woodpecker. It was still so dark that my camera didn´t want to focus on the bird! Being in a sparse forest did not help me either.
So when i moved the bird flied away and no pics of the BW this time.. I continud again and soon i met three Great-spotted Woodpeckers with lone female Little-spotted Woodpecker. All the birds were enjoying the feeder. With better weather i could show you nice photos of all there woodies..
After woodpeckers i climbed to pornaistenniemi bird-tower and nice surprise was male Hen Harrier! I knew that there has been one bird in the are but seeing it that easy was nice. First good bird for the day.
It did not took long after Harrier i had two Stock Doves flying toward the city. Nice birds in February.
After the tower i checked little feeding near but only Tits and some Bullfinches around.

Great-spotted Woodpecker.

Vanhankaupunginlahti. Hen Harrier showed here.

My next stop was old refinery in Viikki which normally brings lots of ducks in winters. This time there was about 45 Mallards and two Golden Eyes. So not much..

Golden Eyes.

The lake. 

After this hotspot i walked to Viikki fields where i saw Great-grey Shrike from distance. No any migrant birds around there and soon i decided to go home to have some sleep..

Great-grey Shrike.

Viikki.

Even it is still February there is lots of birds around. Warm weather brought us lots of Lapwings around Southern Finland. I had flock of five at work one day. Also record early Golden Plover in Pori and also some super early Tundra Swans around Finland, mostly in west.
So, lets hope that warm weather continues and we get some early rarities also.
Our Israeli trip is coming soon also and i am leaving 24th of March for two weeks.
Big thing is to take part of the Champions Of The Flyway birdrace in southern Israel.
Race is first of April and we are going to show how to handle this one! Hmm what else? Okay lets hope i have time to watch birds in Finland before that.
Now i am going to postal office to get my new Rare birds of North-America book. Can´t wait.

Hear you soon.

-Tomppa-

Finally something. 17.2.2014

Sorry about lazy posting.. I have worked like maniac and when i´m not working i must sleep.

Last weekend was finally some free time and i went to Jyväskylä to join "Roller Meeting", which i annual meeting with top class birders. I don´t know why i was invited, i´m not top class birder!
Anyway we had great night with lots of good people and interesting presentations. Markus told us about Iduna and Hippolais Warblers, Roni had nice show about female Sylvia Warblers, Petteri told about Gulls, Harri showed super pics from India and Antti had nice show of birding in East-coast USA.
Later we had very tough ID challenge and i was super glad that i was not the last!
Later Petri told us about Pallid Swifts, Subalpine Warblers and female Pine Buntings.
Thank you everybody for company!

Today i was back in work and when i was walking back home from buss stop i saw Eagle Owl sitting in the roof next to my home building! What a super luck! Very quickly it took off with ten Crows behind it.
Very nice specie and quite rare here in Helsinki.
I will try to go out again soon. Very depressing weather here in Helsinki with rain and fog..

-Tomppa-

Annual board member meeting in Kouvola. 26.1.2014

What a nice weekend i had! I am a board member of the Finnish Twitching society and we had our annual two day meeting in Kouvola. This is one of my favorite weekend in winter when we all meet and we have enough time to discuss all the important issues.
Olavi Kemppainen picked me yesterdays morning and we arrived to Kouvola just before midday. Not much birds during the drive, but i knew that this trip was not for birds.
We started our meeting after one a clock and after many hours of hard work we ended our day and we had time to enjoy sauna and other cool stuff.
Today i woke up with slight headache, but that was no reason to skip rest of the meeting which continued after eight a clock.
Very good decisions and when we left from the Kouvola afternoon, i had very good feeling.
This time we planned to see some birds also during the drive, so we tried to twitch some Grey Partridges from Orimattila.
Sadly some local kids had their weekend motocross challenge in same field where the birds were just two days before...
Very soon we continued our drive and maybe after 15 minutes drive i noticed three black birds sitting in a tree. Quick stop and nice, little flock of Black Grouses! I took some photos and suddenly whole flock jumped in to the air and there was about 20 of those! I got some distant flock pics but at least something!

Part of the flock.

Thanks Petteri, Kalle, Janne, Petri, Juha, Visa, Annika, Jösse, Ina, Olavi and Heikki for great meeting.

-Tom-

Freezing winter birding almost without birds. 23.1.2014

When i woke up today i check the outdoor temperature, -16 degrees.. Not much motivation to do any birding, but there has been so long brake again, so i had to go out.
Seurasaari is about 2km away from my doorstep and i decide to walk there. I´m not really eco-birder and even less winter birder but this time i had nice few hours.
Sun was shining and first i check little pond near my house which is ice free. About hundred Mallards had their last refuge there. I guess that spot remains ice free because there is waist water pipe which brings hot water there.

Mallard party.

Gorgeous male.

Soon after i continued my walk i heard Crossbill calls from the sky. I found three birds witch looked very much Common Crossbills (two males and one female) and calls were more like Common. Not that i would know anything about Crossbill calls.
When i arrived to Seurasaari i put some peanuts on every feeder. Not much birds and city has destroyed one big feeding by cutting all branches lover than my head.. Great job.
Three species of Tits, one Treecreeper, seven Great-spotted Woodpeckers, Nutcracker, one Black Woodpecker (female), flock of Long-tailed Tits and White-tailed Eagle.
Nutcracker was surprise and maybe my third from the Seurasaari ever.

White-tailed Eagle.

WT-Eagle deserves always two photos.

Coal Tit.

One friendly Coal Tit.

View from seurasaari bridge.

When i was walking back i noticed Jay family near bridge and i tried to get some action pics when they jumped in snow. No luck this time...

Eurasian Jay. 

Nice day. Little bit too cold for me but have to to something.. Next weekend i will go to Kouvola to have meeting with other Finnish twitching society board members.
Oh yeah, almost forget. I bought new Nikon TC14 II for my camera. And it works!

-Tom