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Brambling eating rowan berries

 

The first part of the month I spent mostly in Saaremaa at the  Sõrve säär bird station. Despite searching for and watching birds rather diligently I didn’t see any really hot rarity there in October. Only a yellow-browed warbler got in the bird net on October 3rd and was equipped with a ring on its leg and the crested lark that had been in the same place from mid-August showed up nearly every day. As for migration the record migration of  bramblings on October 9th comes to mind, we counted at least 102 500 of them during the day. Due to the warm autumn several late leavers could be seen at Sõrve säär and for two species the observations were record late – on October 9^th a common grasshopper warbler was photographed and on October 12th a marsh warbler. got into the net

I didn’t go on many trips in the second half of October, but managed to get to  Cape Põõsaspea to watch a couple of times. In addition the general meeting of Estbirding took place in Tuksi in Läänemaal on October 20th where plans for the future were discussed and a new board was elected. I managed to get out of the chairman office, next year the society, consisting mainly of male twitchers, will be headed by Mariliis Märtson.

From October also one of the greatest invasions of  pine grosbeaks in recent years  stays in mind. The birds have been seen this autumn in several places (mainly in  Pärnumaa) I myself went to twitch the species at Kabli bird station on October 24th.  The pine grosbeak was the only species to be added in October to my 2012 list, altogether there are now 272 bird species in my year list.

In October my watching hours were 166 (from the beginning of the year 1630 altogether), kilometres by car 3482 (from the beginning of the year 44987) and trip kilometres by foot were 191 in October (from the beginning of the year 1157). In November there will not be many trips, but some longer twitching trip will probably have to be undertaken. A more active period for trips will come again in the beginning of December, when collecting winter points starts.