Bird bongars now wander almost in a line to Lammassaari. We went along to see if we would meet an exciting guest.
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“Shhh!shhh!”
What bird orders itself a pizza after stuffing itself full of seeds and nuts? What has a black beret and a black chin patch, a pale belly and a gray-brown back?
It's a cape, of course. Since the beginning of the year, the guest from the south has drawn bongars all the way to Lammassaari in the middle of Old Town Bay.
That's where we're heading together now, birdwatcher, project coordinator by Heidi Björklund with.
It's hard to tell a cloaked cat from the more familiar goofy cat other than by sound. It has become common in Finland as an occasional visitor, but Björklund is not aware of any confirmed breeding sites.
He if who knew. Björklund coordinated the compilation of Finland's fourth bird atlas. The atlas gathers information about which birds nest in which part of Finland. It also tells about changes in breeding populations and the certainty or uncertainty of observations.
The titmouse, known from birding boards, is the most common bird in Finland. Its breeding population is estimated to be around two million pairs.
The blue tit can be recognized by its blue beret. The species breeds in Finland as far as Southern Lapland, says the bird atlas. Data collection for its latest version is currently underway.
The first one we'll have a bongar bonga right in the parking lot.
You can guess the man as an amateur in the field just by the length of the camera tube. He is coming from Lammassaari and tells hopeful news.
Viitatiainen has been eating all day at the feeding place of cabin number 37, and already on the way you can see a great horned owl.
Kengänkerki draws an owl map in the snow: “After coming to the island, 30 meters to the right, a red cabin, a tree in the yard, the second lowest big branch on the left.”
A boardwalk that cuts through a tall reed leads to Lammassaari. Björklund stops midway. He has a question:
“By the way, did you notice what happened?”
What should have been noticed? Two crows that took flight from somewhere nearby, or perhaps a reed-top blue tit? Maybe I missed the whisker, the sparrow bird sect? Or an isolepinka glowing in the colors of an old black-and-white TV?
“The man spoke to you, past me,” Björklund helps.
Heidi Björklund has noticed that a woman is treated delicately as a man's sidekick at bonga places, no matter how experienced or professional the woman is. Björklund has a thesis on birds of prey and is coordinating the compilation of a bird atlas.
He has come across the same phenomenon to the point of irritation even when his spouse is out in nature by Tom Björklund with. The majority of bongars are still men, which is sometimes seen as belittling and ignoring female enthusiasts.
Lamb island opens in front like a pointillist painting, a canvas full of cottages. The view is bare, leafless, winter naked.
At the beach we turn right as advised. There are a lot of red cabins on the slopes, but you don't have to guess the right one for a long time.
The field is covered in snow in the yard. It has stood there once or twice looking towards the moon.
Soon a small lump will stand out from the branch. It looks like an owl even with the naked eye.
Björklund raises the binoculars to his eyes. For that, he uses the so-called sepia, an arm that saves the shoulders from strain, especially during long observation sessions.
Sepiö is a Finnish invention. In the world it is known as Finnstick.
The horned owl looks like a small screech owl. Its color blends in well with the fir branches.
Through the lenses, the image is focused. The lump has horns, as a horned owl should. Eyes are closed. Would the observation be accepted as a so-called dream surface? Does the sleeping winged one count, or do we only count the bongar's own sleep pictures?
Well-known bongarin fins are also elixirs and flounders, as well as diurnal fins, i.e. species observed during life, a year or a certain day.
The lodge number 37 is already visible from a distance. There are maybe half a dozen men and women on duty on the trail, looking down with binoculars and lenses. The star of the feeding site is the cape weasel, which is not interested in the tallow bars hanging from the branches above.
The viitatiainen gets its food from the ground under the poles. The visits are quick bursts: a nut or a seed in the beak and suddenly a little further away on a branch to enjoy the catch. So it persistently fills its stomach round after round.
Björklund focuses not only on watching, but also on listening.
“Shhh!” the bird suddenly say
s. Now it came, the long-awaited pizza order and a sure sign. Bongaus is a joint art of the eye and the ear.
The cape has a shiny black beret, a small chin patch, a pale chest and a gray-brown back. It's the voice that most certainly distinguishes it from a slob.
At the edges of the set Sami Pennanen makes notes in his observation notebook, his hobby. Rarities such as the cape tit end up there, but also the usual crows, magpies and sparrows, because “otherwise you wouldn't remember them”.
Sami Pennanen records his observations in Finnish. The common way is also 3+3, where the first three letters are taken from both parts of the scientific name. Poecile palustris then becomes Poepal.
Sami Pennanen adds the cape to his observation notebook. On a walking tour from Viikki's campus to Lammassaari, he spotted about 20 species, from great horned owls to horned owls.
On the way back On the plank road in Lammassaari, Björklund stops to look through binoculars to see if a buzzard can be seen in the direction of Viikki's old sewage treatment plant, or in the top of one of the willows there is an isolated magpie, formerly known as a Lapland magpie.
Nothing can be seen or heard, not even a mustache.
“Piuu, piuu, piuu”, Björklund, a former choir singer, illustrates the sound of the timal.
Old Kaupunkinlahti is surrounded by a belt of bird towers and hidden stalls. Björklund gestures towards the Keinumäki tower. From there, in spring's big national bonga competition in the Battle of the Towers, he won bronze as part of the Birdlife Suomen team: 102 species in eight hours, the best ones being the great egret and the grebe.
The coatis has caught a sunflower seed in its beak. The bird rarely stays on the ground to peel and swallow its prey, but flies to safety on a branch.
We arrive to the mainland to Pornainestenniemi. A rarity, the white-backed woodpecker, lives there. Björklund saw something similar on New Year's Eve in Espoo on his winter bird counting route, and now he is hoping for a new observation.
Let's walk and listen.
“Now it's knocking,” says Björklund.
Up high, near the top of the alder, a woodpecker is foraging, but not a white-backed woodpecker, but a pine woodpecker. The white horizontal stripes of the white-backed woodpecker are missing from the back. The neck of the bird is black. It is a female to distinguish it from red-haired dogs.
Actually, Björklund guessed the species even before he saw the bird. The pounding sounded very shallow compared to what he heard on New Year's Eve.
“It was somehow cooler then. Tu-TUMM, tu-TUMM, tu-TUMM.”
Observe birds undisturbed: https://www.birdlife.fi/lintuharrastus/havainnoi-huomaavaisein/
Correction February 2 at 2:22 p.m.: It was a pointillist painting, not a pontil.
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