I hadn't been birding that long - I had been to about 1/3 of the places in Hanko I wanted to visit - when my cell phone beeped. Yes, that's right, first it's silent for weeks and finally when I'm over 100 kilometers from home, it shouts that there's a Lesser Grey Shrike just a few kilometers from home. Great! Well - had it been a lifer, I would have driven there immediately - now I kept birding, although somehow it just didn't feel the same anymore...

Eventually I drove back home and on the way stopped at Lauttasaari where the shrike was. And sure enough - I've been strangely lucky with my twitches all year, perhaps I should quit trying to search for birds myself altogether - I saw it. It didn't sit openly on top of a bush like shrikes usually do. It spent time inside the crowns of trees. It was pretty hard to spot unless it flew. It was also quite fearless, it didn't care if you stood right under it's tree of choice. It just concentrated on it's bugs.