Bad Finnish Birdwatcher

Monday, April 2, 2007 - Catching a Red Kite

If a rare bird is flying east or west along the south coast of Finland and you hear about it (well - you don't HEAR about them, you get a text-message in your cell-phone) and get on the route of the bird and succeed in seeing it, that's what we call "catching" a bird. They are always large birds, mostly raptors but also storks. The most common rarities that we try to catch are Spotted Eagles, both species, and also White and Black Storks. Then there are the bigger rarities - like today.

12:48 a Red Kite was seen heading northwest in southern Espoo. I was in northern Espoo. It turned its course to west and followed the south coast. It was seen in several places along the way. At 14:11 it was in Inkoo where it flew around for little over an hour. Because it seemed to stay on a fairly small area we headed after it - late as always, the Big Boys had a head start of over two hours and had seen the bird already. In Kirkkonummi, we stopped for petrol. The time is 16:00. We were still 20 kilometers from our target. So - waiting for the tank to be filled I get out of the car. And there it is! Flying right above us. The sneaky bastard! We stop at a petrol-station and the bird just casually flies above us. The bird had made a U-turn and was now heading east. We didn't know that, we just happened to be on its route - under it actually. Incredible! Our hearts are racing, we shake hands (a life-tick!), babble about our luck and I can't remember what the hell we did.

We stop for petrol on our way to twitch a Red Kite and it flies over us. Talk about catching a bird. It was like sticking your hand out the window to find out if it rains and have a ball you had lost fall on your hand. A Red Kite fell in our hands today.