Bad Finnish Birdwatcher

Monday, March 10, 2008 - ID lessons

A week ago I spent the weekend in Raahe in an identification meeting. Bird identification that is. We were four guys in the car, we started real early on Saturday morning and drove like a hundred hours to Raahe (read: seven hours). I tried to sleep at least 300 kilometers. At some point when I woke up, the landscape had turned wintery, there was snow on the ground. Winter is beautiful in Finland - something I had almost forgotten this winter living here on the southern coast and longing for the snow that just didn't come.

When finally in Raahe by the completely ice-covered Gulf of Botnia the name of the game was watching photos of birds that are impossible to identify and listening and learning how to identify them. Iberian Chiffchaff was the first species - a species I'll never see and if I do I won't know what the hell it is. The Warblers (Blyth's Reed, Eurasian Reed and Marsh) were the other lesson - a bunch I rarely see, I usually only hear them. Do I now know how to separate them - nope. Then there were hundreds of great bird photos from far away places. And in the evening sauna. Fantastic!

Good company and smooth arrangements made it a very nice weekend indeed. Even my hangover was mild. Thank you for the people responsible arranging it. And thank you to Pasi for the ride and Pepe and Jukka for the company.

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.

"Here's another photo of another small brown bird."