looduskalender.ee

Tree crown with hoopoe.

 

In the morning I stayed for 4 hours in the Kabli bird tower. Although the weather promised a quite substantial passerine and raptor migration the morning movements were rather more meagre than expected. Evidently the migration was influenced by the rather cold morning, several places had frost on the ground. As before numerous chaffinches were moving, but already quite many barn swallows and house martins could be seen too. My year list of species got several additions, the first Montagu’s harriers and yellow wagtails were migrating, and a cuckoo flew towards north. The most exciting species of the morning was a hoopoe, at least two birds were on the move at Kabli.

 

In the evening I reached Läänemaa. The plan was to find the lesser white-fronted goose in the Matsalu national park area. It is the rarest of our goose species; small groups are encountered as they pass on migration at the end of April and early May mainly in the Silma protection area or the Matsalu national park. This year quite many have been seen, in one flock there were 21 birds. Helped by local birdwatchers I managed to find 2 lesser white-fronted geese among the other geese after long telescope inspection. One more difficult species added to the species list.

As the last year point of the day I found the whinchat on the Spitham village fields. Today 6 new bird species were added to my 2012 year list, altogether they  are now  194.