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 Jackdaw

 

January 22

 

Circumstances have forced me travel on foot for a few days and no long birding trips can be undertaken. I sneaked in with Mariliis Märtson and Tarmo Teppe and we checked the closer surroundings of Tartu. In the morning we first turned to the Tartu water treatment plant channel where a  kingfisher and a  wagtail had been seen a few days ago. Unfortunately this time we didn’t find them, but among the mallards we saw two teals, and the duck flock is harassed here by 2 white-tailed eagles and a goshawk. Interesting creatures, those too.

The Aardlapalu landfill is now covered up and the local population of jackdaws and crows has dwindled. In the sorting area there were less than 500 jackdaws and crows, a very small number compared to earlier. Previously 4000-5000 jackdaws could be seen at the same time, once even 9000 jackdaws were counted here. When the refuse handling once gets tidied up there will finally be fewer jackdaws and crows in the city too. Already a car can be parked more confidently under the trees at a park verge. But around Barclay square where thousands of jackdaws spend the night it is still not recommended to leave the car overnight. In the morning it may be uniformly brownish and not all car washes accept a thoroughly spattered car for cleaning.

The most exciting finds of the day however came from Haaslava. Here the sector of the Mõra river between the reservoir and the fish ponds is always ice-free and at the bridge on the Kurepalu road the dipper has wintered almost every year. It is here now too. But the excitement today is caused not by the dipper, but a song thrush that has wintered in the brushwood on the river bank. It is a rare winterer in Estonia, only a few winter observations are known. Mariliis and Tarmo can note new  winter points,  for me the song thrush is the 98^th species bird species in the 2012 list. In Haaslava we also found 7 whooper swans, seems that they haven't wintered in Tartumaa before this winter.