Bad Finnish Birdwatcher

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - Sunday, part two (Grey-headed Woodpecker)

Driving back from Hanko, the city of Tammisaari was a natural place to stop. There were nice amounts (hundreds) of waterbirds of the early and common kind, such as Tufted Ducks, Goosanders and Goldneyes. Four Grey Herons flew past.

The next stop was Fagervik in Inkoo. Finding the wintering Dippers was easy. There were two of them and the other one was singing and the other one was just plain being one of the coolest birds there are. One minute it was flying low over the stream and the other floating like a cork amongst the white foam and then diving in the cold dark water and then popping up on a moss-covered rock pumping its body up and down. The little athlete. Great show! If there's a fan-club for the Dipper, consider me a member. Dipper! We salute you!

After watching the Dippers for a while we whistled for Grey-headed Woodpecker. No response.

So we continued towards home. On the way there was a beautiful small lake and the view caught my eye in way that got the artist in me to wake up. A quick u-turn and a stop later I was out with my camera. Antto stayed behind on the road. So I photograph my heart out. At some point I hear a whistling similar to a Grey-headed Woodpecker. I remember thinking it must be Antto whistling. After a while Antto comes and asks if I heard it. I sure did. It turns out it's the real thing.

We go get a closer look and get the woodpecker to come real close by whistling to it a few times. It's real curious and seems confused because there's no other woodpecker to be found where the sound came from, just two assholes on the ground with a green car. We get good views of it and after a while it gets fed up with us and flies away. Another good find on the same spot is a pair of Parrot Crossbills.

This is what I was photographing...