Time Marches On

Birding of late is very much a case of take what you can get. Spring is taking its sweet time getting here, the latest I've ever experienced in my time living here. Any time it threatens to change season, Winter returns with a vengeance.

As I write I'm looking a complete white out, a day of solid, unbirdable snowfall.

However this is after a reasonable few days for the Easter break, where migrants have begun to trickle in.

Over the past couple of weeks birds such as Woodpigeon, Stock Dove, and Skylark have all made reappearances to the landscape, and likely wonder why they bothered.

These are then soon followed by Lapwing who take up residence on any open ground they can find, as well as starlings.

Passage migrants such as Snow Buntings begin "teu"ing overhead and Rooks, a scarce passage bird, hide amongst flocks of Hooded Crow and Jackdaw.

We decided to take a few days of the break out at mökki, and set off Wednesday through Inkoo and Siuntio.

Degerby held large flocks of Skylarks and provided good opportunity to snap these adorable Roe deer. These are the only native deer species here and are generally commoner than introduced, North American White-Tailed deer, and have a lot more character to them.

A flock of some 20 migrating Bean geese (a tad too distant for specific ID) were the first of the year, and 4 territorial White eagle were also present here.

The few days at the cabin produced the usual suspects, 4 species of Woodpecker, namely Great Spotted, Lesser Spotted, Grey Headed and Black, all drumming and singing.

This particular Great Spotted was fond of using a metal plate on a telephone pole as his resonator. 

Heavy Metal Great Spotted Woodpecker

The cabin also produced the usual owls, with a late night Tawny female "kewick"ing right outside the door and a singing Pygmy Owl putting on a great show around the garden at dawn. 

This Pygmy Owl is giving 2 of the 3 song variants here, the single repeated whistle, and the whistle quickly followed up by a double echo (usually given when the bird is excited, responding to another singer)

A Hazel Grouse also seems to have taken up territory in the adjacent woods, singing actively in the mornings. 

The view over the lake allowed for some spectacular moonrises and I tried my hand phonescoping at 70x.

I used some different softwares to obtain these, which gave some different results. I was quite happy with the level of detail I could get just handheld like this.

We spent some time working around Nummi-pusula, hoping to find some geese on the deck. The flash here was still frozen solid and thus no geese yet. Some fresh in Whooper Swans were looking great in the snow, and our first Common Crane of the year flew past, another fresh in migrant and a true sign of impending Spring. I'm always amazed seeing these dinosaur birds take to the air.

A day trip to Fiskars produced another Rook en route. 

A feckin Rook - can't believe I bothered photographing this, but again, these are scarce here, only breeding in the very west of the country up the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia.

A Great Grey Shrike was also present in the same area. 

Fiskars is a real touristy spot, but a beautiful setting with a number of millponds and artificial rapids providing perfect habitat for Dippers. 

So whilst the family visited a few exhibitions etc. Myself and Kuura spent time watching a pair of Dipper wander around on the ice. 

Snorkelling Dipper - the more I watch these birds, the more I love that intricate scaling effect they have. 

So the Easter break provided a few year ticks and the usual woodland species we expect at the cabin, but Spring could stand to get a move on.