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February 11th

The buzzard is our most common raptor (16.04.2005 Tuudi).

 

Today I made a trip to the Järvselja forests. The morning was very cold, at sunrise the thermometer showed 28 degrees of cold and you really did not want to stick your nose out of the cosy warm car. But the cold notwithstanding the birds were quite loud-voiced – all kinds of tits could be heard, some even let hear a snatch of song, nuthatches called and the great spotted woodpecker’s “kwick” calls sounded from here and there. In Ahunapalu black grouse bubbling came from the bog direction and when I began looking for the sound-makers it turned out that at the verge of the hayfield behind the village the trees were full of black grouse – at least 26 birds. So regardless of the severe cold the morning forest already sounded somewhat more spring-like. The forest trip wasn’t without new species either – I succeeded to see hazel grouse and the three-toed woodpecker. My 2012 list now contains 109 bird species.

On the road back to Tartu the flocks of redpolls around the Aardla polder got a check-over, wanting to find again the twite that I saw last week (the only individual found in Estonia this year). I didn’t find the looked-for bird but once more an Arctic redpoll caught my eye, a nice observation too. Today at least 4 buzzards were at the Aardlapalu landfill site, this winter so many have not been observed there. But it is not any remarkable number, last winter at least 10 buzzards were here. The buzzard is a relatively common winterer in Estonia, although it seems that this winter clearly fewer of them have stayed here compared to the previous couple of winters.