March 25th – city bird rally
Birder Margus Ots, linnuvaatleja.ee
Photo: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
Middle spotted woodpecker
The last Sunday in March is traditionally the city bird watch or city bird rally day. Although the weather was worse than worst and uglier than ugliest our old rally team went out in Tartu. In the band were Riho Marja, Risto Mets, Uku Paal, Peeter Raudsepp and Margus Ots. Rallying was to be within Estonian city limits between 5:00-13:00. In increasing rain we started off from the Toomemägi, where two tawny owls called nicely and so lent the rally a dignified start in every way. In darkness we searched in several forests within the Tartu city borders for other owl species and managed in addition to hear a pygmy owl on the Tartu north-western border. When it finally dawned the rain was replaced by quite dense snowfall and visibility was non-existent. In the rising wind we looked for calmer nooks where there might be at least a small chance to hear the birds’ calls. By and by however the species dropped in, among others such interesting creatures as the middle spotted woodpecker (at Toomemäe and the Raadi cemetery) and the Arctic redpoll (in Ihaste).
Towards midday the downpour finally quietened and we headed for the water treatment plant at Tartu’s border to stay to watch. Visibility was now considerably better and during the last hour a whole bunch of species were added. As the most interesting species we saw the grey wagtail here. At one point Uku reported that some kind of wagtail seemed to be approaching from the south. We couldn’t immediately figure out whom we had to do with, but getting closer the tail seemed somehow too long for a wagtail, and when the bird to our delight landed a few metres away on a branch on the bank it was quite clear – this bird is a grey wagtail. There was no black at the throat and very little yellow on the underpants, thus a female bird. It is a rare passing migrant and a very rare nester here. Good that I got this species early on to my year list, they are now 132 altogether. The grey wagtail stayed and even some twitchers managed to arrive in time but photos of the bird were not caught. It did not want to pose at all and showed itself only in glimpses.
Our city bird rally had its end salute in front of a pub in the Tartu city centre where the bottom of an old beer mug shred our tires into ribbons. It did not depress us unduly because on summing up the species it turned out that despite the bad weather we got a total of 56 species. Last year we only succeeded to meet 41 species in Tartu. From the other Tartu teams we heard that in addition to our list a white-tailed eagle had been seen too, and so 57 bird species were noted in Tartu in the course of the city bird rally. When results from other cities began to come in it was clear that elsewhere weather had been even worse and for the first time in the history of the bird rally Tartu managed to achieve a first place before the coastal cities. No inland city has even reached the top three earlier. After Tartu, Tallinn with 54 species came second, and Haapsalu with 53 species third. 19 cities and 100 participants in all took part and altogether 91 bird species were noted.