Estonia: May 2017

Pygmy Owl

Last year I spent the first week of May in Estonia catching up with some of my "most wanted" European birds.  Colin Wilkinson and I joined a short tour organised by Estonian Nature Tours and led by Tarvo Valker, to see "Great Snipe and woodpeckers", then added a couple of extra days on our own at the superb Matsalu National Park.  We enjoyed almost unbroken sunshine, though it was pretty chilly: Estonia was just coming out of it's coldest spring for decades.

My personal highlight of the tour was a brilliant view of Pygmy Owl, sitting just above us in the forest edge, bathed in the last rays of evening sunshine. Here is a selection of my images from the tour:

Female Capercaille feeding beside a forest track

Black Woodpecker, male

Hazel Grouse, male

Hazel Grouse, female

Old growth forest - a rare habitat in Estonia - but of course, the best place the look for woodpeckers

Grey-headed Woodpecker, male

Part of a huge flock of European White-fronted Geese - many tens of thousands stop off in Estonia en route to the arctic in spring

White Stork

Liverleaf  Hepatica nobilis

Red Squirrel

Woodcock on track at dusk (in car headlights!)

Male and female Common Toad

Brambling, male

Garganey, male and female

Nutcracker

Other highlights of the organised tour included:

• an evening visit to a Great Snipe lek near Tartu (Karavere Slid)
• tracking down a male Three-toed Woodpecker in the depths of an old growth forest
• great views of Wrynecks singing in parkland and orchards
• Red-necked Grebes in gorgeous breeding plumage on many lakes
• Great food and hospitality, one place we stayed was a vodka factory turned into a hotel.

At Matsalu, Estonian Nature Tours booked us into a superbly located guest house, in a prime location overlooking a fine expanse of coastal wetland.  On arrival we were greeted by a large flock of Ruff feeding really close to the front lawn!  A very nice place to stay, with great breakfasts and lovely hosts.

View from Tuulingu guest house, Matsalu

Ruff were numerous all around Tuulingu, some great views from the road as you approach the guest house

Wood Sandpiper

Barnacle Geese

European White-fronted Geese

Sunset from the viewing tower at Tuulingu

Ruff, male

Wood Warbler

Elk

Other highlights at Matsalu:

• Displaying Montagu's Harriers
• Migrating sea duck - hundreds of Long-tailed Ducks, Common and Velvet Scoter
• Spotted Redshanks in lovely chocolate-black breeding plumage 
• Nice restaurants in nearby Happsalu

I can thoroughly recommend visiting Estonia. It is a very forested landscape that is actively managed - every property in the rural areas has a big stack of logs in the yard.  This means that old growth forest is actually pretty scarce and sadly we did see some areas of old mature pine and firs in the heart of the best area for forest birds (Capercaille, Pygmy Owl etc) being clear-felled.

SP 42 Short Day Count: Hawfinches and Farmland birds

Great to be out all day on Saturday taking part in the BOS Short Day Count with Colin Wilkinson, covering 10km OS grid square SP42.  This was our second year covering this patch for the winter count and we are starting to get to know some of the sites quite well.  One place we always head to is the hamlet of Kiddington, where there is some nice parkland with mature trees, an old church with yew trees and a small lake that is relatively undisturbed.  We called in reasonably early in the morning as we felt this was our best potential site for Hawfinches. And so it proved, with a small flock of at least five in tall trees as we approached the main house, and at least eight more as we left the churchyard and walked towards the lake - at least 13 in all - the largest number I've seen so far this winter.  Extremely wary, they did not stay around too long, soon flying off up the small valley.

Our favourite site is probably the area around Northbrook, just south of Lower Heyford.  This a great place for farmland birds - the last Corn Bunting stronghold in the BOS area - and also close to the Cherwell Valley.  Pretty much the first birds we saw were a pair of Grey Partridge, then a little further on, a large mixed flock of buntings and finches soon produced a good number of Corn Buntings (at least 30), as well as plenty of Yellowhammers and a single Reed Bunting.  Our "purple patch" continued with a Little Owl appearing briefly in a barn window, then further on, we picked out a Yellow-legged Gull amongst a mixed group of gulls in the valley.  Very surprisingly, given the abundance of farmland birds in this area we didn't locate any Skylarks, and we regretted not trying harder for them, as by dusk we hadn't found them anywhere else! 

This afternoon I spent some more time watching farmland birds, this time a bit closer to home, near Thorpe Mandeville (Northants)  This particular area is often quite good in winter, with large flocks of linnets every winter, for example.   But this winter it seems to be better than normal, with a large flocks of Skylarks and Yellowhamers as well at the Linnets.  Searching though bunting flock a week ago I was very pleased to find two Corn Buntings - now quite a scarce bird in Northamptonshire - giving hope they may just be hanging on as a breeding bird in this area.  The star birds this afternoon though were Lapwings.  A flock of about 300 were spread across the field, busy pulling earthworm after earthworm from the soil. It looked so easy for them to find the worms, they just had to make sure the attendant Black-headed Gulls didn't steal them.

A flock of 300 Lapwings is a very notable sighting in our area

Busy swallowing an earthwor.

The flock were constantly filling the air with their wonderful calls

Fieldfares and Redwings were also very much in evidence, one Fieldfare obligingly walked towards me:

Fieldfare

Two great patches of farmland showing how nature can flourish alongside productive farming & heartening to see.

For more about the Short Day Count look here and here.