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During the long bird trip day I managed to check the greater part of Pärnumaa’s and Läänemaa’s best stopping places for migrating waterfowl. I started in the morning in Häädemeeste, on the road were the Audru polder, Matsalu bay (Keemu, Haeska), Põgari, Haapsalu and I even succeeded in reaching the Tuula fields near Keila in the evening. While I only managed to read a couple of neck rings yesterday, today’s harvest was clearly better – a total of 12 rings, including 2 Bewick’s swans, 1 bean goose and 9 great white-fronted geese. This year I have already managed to read the codes of 30 neck rings.

 

Pied avocet (05.04.2012 Põgari)

 

With today 3 new species were added to my year list. In the Matsalu national park grounds I noticed a hovering kestrel at the road in Melva. A white stork sat at the old nest site at Kloostri, and the avocets had arrived to the Põgari shore meadows. The 2012 list now has 141 bird species.

The rarity news of the day came from Kabli, a pallid harrier was seen there. A very early observation, the earliest ever in Estonia. Usually this species strays here in late April and early May. For myself I found the red-breasted goose seen a few days ago on the Tuula fields near Keila. Usually this species isn’t particularly easy to twitch because the goose flocks move constantly around and in a large flock it is very difficult to discover one particular bird.