looduskalender.ee

 Translation: Liis

September 22nd

 

In early morning the fog was thick on the eastern shore of Lämmijärve and there were clearly less bird movements than in the previous days. When the fog lifted the migration got going at full speed but we „only“ succeeded to count a little more than 140 000 migrants this day. In eight days 3,3 million birds have come across the Lämmijärve. Is the migration of chaffinches coming to an end for this time? Russia is large and wide, room for plenty of chaffinches there. Maybe another migration wave will come? As before the Mehikoorma observations can be seen in the e-Biodiversity database.

It seems that the chaffinches have at last reached the west coast. If it was a relatively quiet day at Mehikoorma then on Kihnu island 290 000 birds were counted today and at Sõrve säär 183 000 chaffinches. More details about Kihnu  can be read in the Kihnu migration project blog and about Sõrve säär in the local bird station’s diary.

 

September 23rd

 

At Mehikoorma total silence reigned. The birds seemed to celebrate Sunday. During the whole morning only a couple of thousand birds came across the Lämmijärve. The weather wasn’t the worst – a weak south-westerly wind, cloudy, from time to time it rained. Evidently the rain kept the migrants stationary.

In Mehikoorma village today a rare visitor was seen, a yellow-browed warbler (Phylloscopus inornatus). I was watching at the lighthouse at the time and missed the bird. We looked for it for some time but finding a little thing in stands of high trees and in a greater bird flock is a rather hopeless enterprise. This summer the yellow-browed warbler has been seen twice in Estonia now, one bird was ringed a few days ago at Kabli bird station. The next few weeks are still favourable for finding a yellow-browed warbler. I have seen the species in its wintering areas in south-eastern Asia. Maybe luck turns and I finally get an Estonian point too this year.