New home and balcony ticks. April.

 So we moved back to Maunula, like I mentioned in my last post. Now writing these after month, I have limited memory of my doings during that time. on 11th of April I twitched King Eider from Jollas, Helsinki with stroller and Julius. It was my species number 260 with stroller and I´m quite proud of the number I have there. It has took a lot of my time and we have great memories with my kids. Really worth every minute! 

King Eider male from Jollas.

After we moved I really concentrate my birding to my balcony. Some birds worth to mention were two Pink-footed Geese from 31st of March, Hawfinch from same day, Waxwing from 13th of March, Rough-legged Buzzard 25th of April and Short-eared Owl from 29th of April.

Here is some photos from 1st of April to end of April.

Coal Tit from Maunula.

Mixed flock of Bean- and Great white-fronted Geese.

Two of many Common Cranes I have seen from my balcony.

Woodpigeon from Maunula.

Fieldfare from Maunula

Hoopoe From Haltiala, Helsinki.

Awesome looking halo effect. Also view from my balcony. 

Halo effect.

Julius watching something. 

Recently I have used my spare time at the gym. I´m applying to Police university college this fall so lots of training and reading fro that. Let´s see how it goes. I will update that here too. 

-Tom 

Spring birds and sunshine. 3.3.2021

Finally I have energy to write here.. It is already May and my last post is from February. Let´s see what has happened since that. 

First signs of spring are one of those things you wait so long and when it finally comes it feels so great! Lots of sunshine and already some migrating birds around Helsinki area. Last weekend, which was still February I tried to twitch a local Common Kingfisher from Espoo, but no luck with that. Only consolation Reed Bunting near the place. Weather was amazing, so it was nice to walk around the area even without seeing the main target.

On 2nd of March I had change to witch Great-white Egret from Viikki after my day at work. I cycled to the spot and bird was fishing in small ditch. I was lucky, cause I had no binoculars of telescope with me when one younger birder let me watch the bird with his telescope, so thanks a lot! I had my camera in my back bag, so here is a very poor record shot of the bird. 

Great-white Egret in small ditch. 

Also Stock Dove and Skylark in the area, so it really felt like spring! 

Cold period continued about week or two, can´t remember anymore. Anyway moved back to Maunula, which is small suburbs in Helsinki. We use to live there before Vilma was born and it felt god to be back. More in my next post.

-Tom

Seed eater twitching. 13.2.2021

 Finally some birding activity after some weeks. Most of my free time I have spend with my children while Sanni has been working. Also some other things to do now and then which has effected to my activity. On 30th of January Liisa and Matti Kapanen found interesting bunting visiting their feeder with a flock of Yellowhammers at Masala, Kirkkonummi. Their first thought was some kind of female Pine Bunting, or hybrid between Yellowhammer x Pine Bunting. Like many have noticed, this is not the easiest mess to figure out..

In last few years our rarities committee rejected many female-type birds from the Finnish list and after getting more and more information of the complex, there is really no straight way to ID these without DNA-sample. This bird looks good. It was even caught and ringed by RC-members and there is no yellow in the bird at all. Many feature looks good for Pine Bunting, but even that is not enough. At this point I was thinking that what is the point to know and learn all the birds if you still have to be molecular biologist to ID this one.. Anyway, I made some kind of "safe twitch" today and bird was showing nicely, but from the distance. I met my friend Peetri Joki, who lives next house of the bunting and together we went to see the bird. Flock was moving nervously around the small area and it took me almost half an hour to see the bird good enough. I even got some poor record shots of the bird. Thank god there is much better ones for example in www.tarsiger.com 

Poor shot.

Overall color looks very grey in these photos.

Pine Bunting?

A bit better photo. 

Bird as feeding in a place like this with Yellowhammers.

I spend almost an hour there and then I left back to Viikki to check if our long staying Twite would show up again today. It did after some searching it for 20 minutes with few other birders. Finally I found it from feeder and later it moved closer and everybody saw it nicely. Here is few record shots of the bird. 

Twite.

And again.

Bird was surprisingly easy to find from the flock of Greenfinches and sparrows.

Nice birds today and possibly my second Pine Bunting ever and 16th for Finland if accepted. I twitched one. also from Kirkkonummi four years ago or something. That was a male bird so much easier. Twite is very rare here in Viikki and also only few birds annually in Helsinki area, so it was nice to catch up with this one too. 

More birds next week? Maybe. Full winter going now here, so we have to wait the migrants for some weeks. 

-Tom

Slaty-backed Gull in Kouvola 24.1.2021

Yesterday afternoon I was doing some groceries when I got message to our alarm system. "Putative Slaty-backed Gull in Kouvola" Shiit... I missed the first for Finland by three minutes so obviously I was super interested about the bird. Still, no chance to go and twitch that moment, so I had to made some plans for this morning. 

I started around nine o clock this morning and I arrived to the site about 1.5 hours later. River bank, where the bird was seen was full of birders and my min target was very easy to see. It was swimming near the shore, but soon moved a it further. I started to watch the gull and see all the features. At some point it moved back near us so I got pretty decent photos despite the poor light. 

Bird was adult in winter plumage and quite easy to ID, but I can imagine what went through finders head when she watched this beast. Elissa Soikkeli was the finder of the bird, congrats! 

Here is few pictures of the bird.

Typical head markings and broad white edges. 

Back color is very different than other dark-backed gulls here.

Slaty-backed Gull.

And again, what a bird and so so rare.

On my way back I had about seven Grey Partridges from my car and soon I decided to drive to Riihimäki, cause Crested Lark was seen there earlier same day. Bird has been there already some weeks, but finally I had time to visit the site. 

First I arrived to the wrong place, but I collected Common Pheasant to my year list from there and I had to drive another 1,5 km to the right place. 

Some other birders around too and took me about five minutes to find the bird. It was sitting on a branch and soon landed quite near. Poor light there too, so record shots only.. Great bird anyway. 

Dark morph male Common Pheasant.

Crested lark on a branch.

Crested Lark on the ground.

What a day. Great birds, great people twitching. Quite much driving again, but it was really worth it. Again, congrats to Elissa who found the Gull! What a weird place to see bird like this. Also almost forgot to mention that we twitched Twite to my stroller list with Julius yesterday. Quick twitch without camera this time, but one of my easiest missing species left with strollers.

Slaty-backed was my lifer number 345 in Finland, so if there is any luck this year, I might reach the 350. Who knows?

More birds next week, I hope. 

Tom