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Crested lark at Sõrve säär 29.09.2012, the bird has been staying in the same place already from 19.08.2012. NB! When determining crested larks care is needed because the common skylark too raises a crest from time to time. At the same time the crest of a crested lark with worn plumage can be quite short.

 

Today I came as far as to the Sõrve bird station in Saaremaa on my trip. In the morning a great commotion broke loose already at first light and finches and tits and all kinds of other creatures too flew in great flocks to the sea and towards south. Rariliin (Birdline) also started making noises at once in early morning. First came a message that on Kihnu island a short-toed lark (Calandrella brachydactyla) had been seen. Then information arrived about a Eurasian dotterel  (Charadrius morinellus) in Läänemaa, on the Põgari beach. Neither bird was twitchable and I wasn’t eager to go back to the mainland. The Sõrve bird station company was already starting to think that it was the wrong place for searching for rarities this time. We did find the crested lark  (Galerida cristata) again that had already been there since August 19 near the Sõrve säär lighthouse, but the bird didn’t cause any particular excitement any more.

 

Red-flanked bluestart, ringed 29.09.2012 at Sõrve säär, 5th observation in Estonia

 

But the greatest sensation of the day and maybe even of the whole autumn season up to now was yet to come. At Sõrve bird station birds are ringed too. In the morning mainly goldcrests (Regulus regulus), great tits   (Parus major), long-tailed tits  (Aegithalos caudatus)  and chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs) got into the nets. At noon a greater shower came and we folded the nets and believed that catches were at an end for today. But an hour later the shower had passed and opened the nets again. Only a few minutes later an unexpectedly colourful bird was in the net - a red-flanked bluestart  (Tarsiger cyanurus)! This eastern vagrant visitor we really did not expect. The red-flanked bluestart has now been seen altogether 5 times in Estonia. Most recently it was seen and photographed in April this year, in Pärnumaa near  Vändra (the photo can be seen in the Estbirding gallery). The remaining observations are from the last century. I have only seen the red-flanked bluestart myself once and it happened some years ago in the wintering areas in south-eastern Asia, somewhere in the Thai and Burma border regions. So I again got one more Estonian point, I have met altogether 312 bird species in Estonia now. My 2012 year list now has 271 bird species.