looduskalender.ee

 Translation: Liis

 

Since a mighty passerine migration could be seen at the Lämmijärve shore yesterday we went again to Mehikoorma today. And we were not disappointed. More than half a million passerines took off from Cape Pnevo today to cross the lake! I have not had such a good migrant day even at Sõrve säär. The majority of the mass of passerines was of course chaffinches, but numerous thrushes, tits, wagtails, swallows were also on the move. At the tails of the passerines again a greater number of sparrowhawk and hobbies followed. Above the lake a great battle was on, tits and chaffinches steadily fell victim to the raptors. Gulls too attacked the migrants crossing the lake, the gulls even got the better of a jay.

 

1861 jays came across the Lämmijärve,  4 of them also got rings on their legs (photo: Uku Paal)

 

In addition to scoping we also took part in the ringing today. We managed to find room for a bird net in the bushes next to the observation spot and the catch in one net was surprisingly good. During the day 49 birds got rings on their legs:: 14 blue tits, 9 great tits , 8 coal tits, 1 willow tit, 1 nuthatch, 3 chaffinches, 7 chiff-chaffs, 1 reed warbler, 1 tree sparrow and 4 jays.

Since the weather will not change greatly during the next few days tomorrow too should be a great migrant day at Mehikoorma. We will see. All of today’s and also the next few days’ observations can be seen in the e-Bioidiversity data base.

Estonian birders have also been on the other shore of the lake, on the Pnevo peninsula, to observe the migration. You can read about the adventures of Heinrich Veromann at Cape  Pnevo in 1958 in the album of the Ugala fraternity, “Ugalensis XI”, story “Diversant” (The saboteur); it can be found for instance here (in Estonian).