Then on Sunday the same looong drive home. We killed time in the car by listening to bird sound recordings, trying to identify the chirps and trills. I sucked at it.

This is the story of how three morons went and twitched a Pine Bunting, which has been in Kirkkonummi for about two weeks now. I was one of the three. It was Saturday.

It was a darn foggy morning. So we 'adjusted the moment of our departure', i.e. I decided to sleep an hour longer. I've got the car keys, so it's kinda hard to leave me behind. When I finally did wake up the air was still like milk, visibility was very poor indeed. We took our time, I wasn't the only one sleeping in. And then there was the filling of the tank and drinking of the coffee on the petrol-station on the way to the site. We did get there - eventually.

By the feeder the bird had been visiting there were about a dozen people waiting. The bunting hadn't been seen all morning, there weren't any Yellowhammers either. Pine Buntings hang out usually (read: always) with Yellowhammers - here in Finland that is, back home I'm sure they hang out with other Pine Buntings. We didn't stay at the feeder for long, the others had stood there for hours, so why should we. We walked to the nearby fields in search of the Yellowhammers - and the Pine Bunting.

After about an hour's walk we get a call, the bird's been seen at a place we walked by earlier. So back we go, the others are there already. On the muddy field there's a flock of Yellowhammers and they're flying to the woods and back and it's just difficult to get a grip of the flock. All the fields are bare, just the kind you'd expect to find the first Lapwing on. But no Lapwings, no sounds of Larks even. Scenery is like in April but birds are the wintery kind. Silent spring.

Eventually the male Pine Bunting is found in the flock. It's seen well enough. Everybody sees it. That's what matters I guess. After a while the whole flock of about 250 plus one takes off, flies around in circles, at times disappearing into the low-hanging mist. And we head for home, with our boots muddy. I even have my trousers muddy, with footprints of a wee dog on the right leg. It walked all over us, that wee dog.

Oh hell, I can't get myself to write about the bird-race we participated (with a team we named 'Shit' by the way) on the 6th of the ongoing month. A very brief lesson in finnish history: December 6th is the independence day of Finland and therefore a public holiday. So now you know.

Last Friday we went twitching with Jukka. He's a teacher and a dental-patient. And he was on the Galapagos islands just a while ago (the bastard!). Our target was a Crested Lark in Lahti. It's a species that usually - once found somewhere in Finland - stays on the area for a long time, often months. This guy has been in Lahti for two months now. There's one in Lapland that's been there even longer. And if you ask me it's quite likely both of them will spend the whole winter on their chosen areas. If they don't die that is. The weather certainly isn't causing any trouble, the warmest temperature of all times in Lapland in December was just recorded.

So we drive towards Lahti. At about halfway a White-tailed Eagle flies over the road. It was migrating I guess. In Lahti we arrive, but where's the bird then. We know that the right area is on the south side of the railroad track. That's not the most accurate information in a city split in half by the railroad track. A map would be nice, but we don't have one. We could call someone for more information, but we don't do that. We could just ask someone local walking down the street, but we don't do that either. Instead, we drive around. At some point I'm on the parking lot of a large furniture store and I remember thinking to myself among all the people doing their Christmas shopping: "this isn't going quite as planned right now..."

Eventually, somehow, with luck, we find the right area. We park the car and split up and start searching for the lark. It's a large open area. There's a minigolf-track, a dog-park, a small skate-park, large lawns and walkways crisscrossing all over. After walking for a while I start thinking: "Man! This place is huge! And there's not much daylight left..." And just then I spot the bird feeding on the ground in front of me. Luck, once again (don't go twitching without it!). So I call Jukka and he gets there and I get my telescope and we watch the bird pecking the frozen ground and get good views of it. It actually hops towards us to a distance of about five meters and then eventually flies away. We head for a well deserved cup of coffee and then home.

I was approached by National Geographic magazine for this picture, they wanted it on the front cover, but I said: "Dude, I'm not in it for the money man, like my art has a deeper meaning you know..." Behold! The greatest photograph of a Crested Lark ever taken!