October 17, 2005
Arctic Geese and the World's Laziest Sparrow
I shuddered Saturday morning after forcing myself out of bed and looking out my kitchen window. The winds had turned NW overnight, and dark rain clouds rolled in from the horizon. Cold and dreary ...
But rain or shine, I was joining in on the "fun". With the winds turning northerly for the first time in weeks, a good blast of arctic migration should have been on the way. So, a quick cup of coffee later, I bundled up, grabbed my gear and headed south of the city to Puutossalmi. Many birds follow the large Lake Kallavesi south, passing by the little point of land where the lake narrows ... making it a prime spot for viewing fall migration of waterfowl, divers and raptors.
By the time I arrived at 9:00am, about a dozen birders were already there. I'm not sure if it was the rainy weather, but things just didn't materialize that morning. After 4.5 hours of scanning the sky and water, most people were giving up hope of seeing too much ... In fact, the only goose was a single Brant (Sepelhanhi) that flew overhead, and other than a decent showing of Black-throated Divers (Kuikka) and a single Snow Bunting (Pulmunen), the morning was a bust.
Pinning my hopes on the promises from local birders that "tommorrow will be better", I joined some friends and headed out early Sunday morning. The winds were now coming straight from the north -- better for migration, but notably colder. At least it wasn't raining!! About 15 birders gathered at the point, staring face-first into the blistering wind ... (Except for the lack of salt-water spray and a few jagged rocks to hide behind, it was a lot like a winter sea-watch back in Newfoundland!! Nice to feel at home!!)
Things started a bit slowly -- a few Long-tailed Ducks (Alli) and Black-throated Divers (Kuikka) shot by. But soon the geese starting coming - and when they did, they just kept popping up. A flock here, another flock there -- some way out on the horizon, almost invisible to the naked eye, others flying directly over our heads. In fact, the keeners with pen and paper estimate we saw close to 7000 geese throughout the morning and early afternoon. Not bad by any standards ... While many of the geese were too far away for definite ID's, most of them were Bean Geese (Metsähanhi) and Barnacle Geese (Valkoposkihanhi).
One of the more entertaining birds, though, was a House Sparrow (Varpunen). It arrived on the small ferry which carries cars back and forth across the small span of water (~250m) which seperates the points of land in Puutossalmi, and hopped around our feet for an hour or so, picking up scraps and enjoying little handouts from the birders on coffee break. It's belly full, it decided to go home ... But despite the short flight back to the other side, it waited for the ferry to return, got back on and hitched a ride. Talk about lazy!!!
Well, it's vacation time for me --- today I start a weeklong trip to England to shake off the cobwebs and spend some time with a friend.
Kippis!!
A group of birders enjoying the arctic migration at Puutossalmi ... (Click to enlarge)
The world's laziest House Sparrow (Varpunen) enjoying lunch ... (Click to enlarge)