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The longing to sleep a little longer was strong  after the long trips of the last days but since the Birdfinder 2011 unchallenged champion had firm plans to go on a trip I wangled myself along and we were outdoors already at 4.30 am. We made a longer round of polders, first heading for the Valguta polder. There were plenty of birds, all kinds of ducks and other creatures were present in quite large numbers in the flooded polder (for more precise information see the e-Biodiversity database). As new arrival we heard a willow warbler to start with. Before this day it had not been seen in Estonia this year?

 

 Red-crested pochard at the Valguta polder 21.04.2012 (Mariliis Märtson).

 

But a greater surprise came later, when we already had, as we believed, inspected the area thoroughly. In the pochard flock we discovered a red-crested pochard pair! This stray visitor we would not have hoped to see here. The birds were very far away and unfortunately we didn’t get good photos of them, but as proof of identity a foggy image caught through the scope will do too. The Birdfinder competition points went to last year’s champion again, and the same name is in top of the list again, making it somewhat tedious. As of now, this year it is the second observation of the red-crested pochard in Estonia – on April 9th a pair was seen in Haapsalu. Then twitching did not succeed. Excellent that the species got seen now, and the year list collected one more real rarity.

We continued our polder trip towards north. At the Tamme polder we saw as new arrivals barn swallows. The first swallows were seen in Estonia already a week ago, but for us it was the first observation this year.

 

 Red-breasted goose, Väike-Rakke 21.04.2012 (Mariliis Märtson).

 

The Sangla polder was relatively empty of birds but on the nearby Väike-Rakke fields 2 red-breasted geese were conspicuous in a large goose flock! Personally I have seen this species in three places already this year. Only some ten years ago the red-breasted goose was a quite great rarity, but in recent years observations of it have become steadily more frequent. Today too one more bird was found, in Põgari in Läänemaa.

Today we also visited the Navesti polder in North Viljandimaa. The southern part of the polder was already quite dry and the waterfowl were no longer here. As new species I found a lesser spotted eagle here. In the northern polder part however large areas were still under water. Wigeons (1400) and pintails (500) were numerous, also Bewick’s swans (230). As new species 2 marsh sandpipers and 2 common sandpipers were here. Today 6 new species were added to my 2012 list, now there are 181 species.