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January 15
In the first morning light in Suurup I set out on the Mid-winter waterfowl count with Pedasi as the destination. Clearly I had overrated my capacity and in the evening I had only reached halfway, to the western shore of Lahepere bay. Tomorrow I will continue on the Pakri peninsula and at Paldiski Bay up to Pedasi. In the Suurupi – Lahepere bay section no-one particularly exciting was to be seen; the most numerous species was the long-tailed duck, altogether 4440 of them in the area. All the waterfowl seen today are shown in the e-Biodiversity database.

From Vormsi island information came by way of Rariliin (Birdline) that a Northern hawk owl (Surnia ulula) had been seen at Suuremõisa. Mariliis Märtson won the first registered marks in the Rarileidja 2012  competition by this find. Rarities have been observed earlier in January too (the red phalarope in Laoküla and the hawk owl at Valmaotsa), but those birds were really discovered already during last year and the Rarileidja marks were registered in last year’s competition. Results of Rarileidja 2011 are here.