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Redstart.

 

In the morning I was again telescoping at Põõsaspea neem (cape), but since few waterfowl were on the move I rather quickly headed for Läänemaa to inspect the bird spots there. At Spitham village I got a redstart as new species for the year list: a male bird had landed from migration and was busy in the bushes together with a black redstart. The following new species I got from Nõmmküla manor. First the song of a pied flycatcher  was heard. It has been seen in South Estonia for some time already, on the north coast the first ones have at last started arriving too. Moving closer to the flycatcher I suddenly scared a raptor into flight. I caught the creature in the binoculars but since it was very close I could see even unaided that the bird was a black kite. I raced to the car for my camera but saw the bird only for a moment quickly disappearing over the forest. The 200th bird species of my year list I really would have liked to have on a photo. But during the last few days at least 10 black kites have already been seen in Estonia, so hopefully I will manage to see it again.

In the evening I moved around on the Noarootsi peninsula. At Ramsi cape I finally found the Arctic tern for my year list. In Haapsalu that I have passed several times during the last few days silver terns are said to have been seen in quite great numbers for some time. I decided to finish the long day trip at Sutlepa sea. Even before climbing the bird tower I got the  spotted crake as new species, one bird was calling quite actively. Yesterday I didn’t come across this species here so it had probably just arrived from migration. From the tower you could see even without binoculars that compared to the day before even more new species had arrived – there were more grebes, and among the others horned grebes could be seen too. After the long day trip laziness started to set in and I decided to count only the grebes instead of all birds. I set up the scope and the first birds in view were 2 black-necked grebes! At first I thought that my eyes deceived me. But when the relatively similar horned grebe was swimming quite close by it was quite clear. I had really come across a black-necked grebe again, a few days ago I found one in the Audru polder. From the early 1990s onwards the species has now been seen 13 times in Estonia. In addition to the black-necks at least 40 great crested grebes, 8 red-necked grebes and 6 horned grebes were busy in the sea at Sutlepa. It was a quite nice sight to see 4 grebe species at once within a radius of 5 m.

With this day 5 new bird species were added to my 2012 year list; now they are 202 altogether. Up to the end of May some 40 species more will probably be added to the list. After that finding new species will be quite difficult because only rarities are left then.